At any one time there are approximately 119 children waiting to be adopted in Wales, with 29 of those children waiting for nine months or more.

For boys, sibling groups, children over three, and those with complex early histories, the wait to find a forever home can last a long time.

On average, siblings wait 135 days more than individual children to be adopted. For many prospective parents the thought of adopting two or more children can raise concerns about affordability and physical space.

But a new campaign launched by National Adoption Service for Wales aims to encourage more people to adopt those who have been waiting the longest.

Suzanne Griffiths, Director of the National Adoption Service for Wales, says: “We know from research conducted within adoption services in Wales that myths in relation to age and gender continue to exist; some prospective adopters believe that younger children present with fewer issues and others feel that girls are easier to care for.

“This is not always the case as all children have different needs and experiences and often the quieter child can be harder to work with.

“Sometimes we know less about the experiences of a younger child whereas we might have more detailed knowledge where an older child is concerned. For these older children we are often in a better position to predict any future support needs should they require it.”

“We successfully place children from all age groups, genders, backgrounds and circumstances, unfortunately older children, boys, sibling groups and children with additional needs can potentially wait that bit longer.”

“We actively encourage people to consider all children when coming into the adoption process.”

The National Adoption Service and its regional teams support everyone affected by adoption, working with birth parents and relatives, adoptive parents, and professionals to make sure that a child’s best interests are placed at the centre of every adoption.

In their powerful new TV ad we follow the story of a seven-year-old child as he is matched with his new family.  

The emotive advert opens with a young boy greeting his adopted father wearing every item of his clothing, including a bobble hat and gloves, yellow wellies and bright blue goggles.  

The ad – featuring actors – reveals how the child has been moved around a lot and that it may take a while to come out of his shell.  

We watch as the little boy struggles to eat beans on toast with gloves on and how difficult it is to score a goal in wellies.  

Eventually, the boy feels safe enough to take off his protective clothing, able to eat popcorn and watch a movie with his dad.  

The ad ends with both father and son happily wearing a pair of goggles, with the words ‘Choose adoption. Choose family.’ 

The advert is based on real-life experiences of adoption across Wales – including Clare and Gareth who adopted a sibling group through Vale, Valley and Cardiff Adoption in 2016.

Clare explains: “Our son wore his swimming goggles every single day, everywhere he went from the day he moved in until the rubber straps perished and fell apart.”

On the advert Suzanne Griffiths says: “We hope the new TV advert will assist people thinking about adoption to understand that children who have experienced a difficult or challenging start in life have often developed their own ways of coping and therefore need time, patience and support to help them to settle into their new families.

“Some settle easier than others but what’s important is that they are enabled to do so at their own pace. The National Adoption Service offers support to all new and established families to assist with those early adjustments, and throughout their lifelong journey as a family.

National Adoption Service is asking people to share images of themselves wearing goggles on social media #ChooseFamily and to reveal the moments that made their family @nas_cymru to encourage others to choose to adopt.  

For more information about adoption, visit adoptcymru.com/choosefamily   

Our winners for the ‘What kind of Superhero are you?’ Competition have been chosen. We received a wonderful variety of entries and our judging panel thoroughly enjoyed looking at each piece that was entered. Thank you to everyone who entered and congratulations to all of our winners. To view our winning entries and to read the judges’ comment please click here.  

* Please note that personal information within our winning entries have been anonymised for confidentiality purpose. This includes changing names of people, pets and places.

 “I love the way they have included their whole fam“I love the way they have included their whole family as superheroes. I particularly like how the family are flying high over the colourful rainbow and bright shiny sun.”

“This is a beautiful drawing. I see that you’ve put a lot of thought and effort into this drawing. It’s very colourful and bright. This drawing made me feel really happy. I love that you’ve added so many big smiles and bright colours.”

“Lots of colour and smiley faces. Nice to see that the family are the superheroes and not just one person.”

Age 8-10 winner -drawing

“WOW! The attention to detail in this picture is very impressive. I love all the little details in the robot and how it carries the bot baby in its pouch. Chief engineer storm looks like he could fix anything with his tools on his belt and then the amazing super drone with 4 propellers to help it fly high, I can see from this picture they make a great super team.”

“Fantastic drawing, amazing detail. Liked the super drones and the baby pouch. I think it gives a sense of the child’s personality and thinking about what makes a superhero.”

“Great picture. You have clearly put in a lot of work into to this drawing and it’s paid off. I like that you added so much detail, and the colouring is really neat. You are a great artist!”

Age 8-10 winner – poem

“I really enjoyed listening to this poem. It made realise that we all have the ability to be superheroes just like this “secret hero”. I loved how even though he is a superhero he let us all know that even heroes sometimes make mistakes and that’s ok. I also put too much garlic in my spaghetti bolognaise, so we have that in common!”

“This piece about being a superhero was great fun. I thought the child set out really well what makes a superhero, including thinking about his impact on other people.”

“Something different visually and explained in a thoughtful way of what a Superhero should be.”

Thank you to everyone who entered, here are some more entries.

Most children born in the UK between the above dates should have an individual Child Trust Fund (CTF) account open in their name, ready for when they reach age 18.

The Government (in 2002) set up the Child Trust Fund to encourage children to save money and gave them a head start by investing a sum of money to get them started, which they can access at age 18.

This was a new initiative in asset-based welfare, and a subsequent government stopped providing it in 2011.

For most children born between September 2002 and January 2011 the Government put £250 into a Child Trust Fund at birth and topped this up with a further £250 when the child reached 7 years of age. These amounts were doubled for children in families in receipt of Child Tax Credit.

The original accounts should have been set up by their Birth Parents (using the child`s Birth Name). If they didn’t do this (for whatever reason), the government (Inland Revenue) set up a CTF account for the child as an HMRC-allocated account, using a range of account providers.

There are complications for adopted children and young people. Adoptive parents could have had the ‘registered contact’ status for the account transferred to themselves after an adoption order was granted, but there may have been complications with change of name etc. Adoptive parents were able to make contributions to these accounts over the years. If your child is under 18 there could still be opportunities to do this.

Most of these accounts were invested in the stock market, so many have accumulated growth over the years, and may now potentially be worth £1,000 or more.

Eligible teenagers aged 16 – 18 can take control of these accounts, at any time following their 16^th Birthday – and can, for example, choose which account they wish their CTF to be invested in.

However only the young person can withdraw money from their account (after their 18^th Birthday), and legally they are entitled to spend the money in any way they choose. Parents may advise them to use it wisely – e.g., invest it for when they are older – but the law states they have the right to withdraw it and spend it in any way they decide.

Should adopters (or adopted young people over age 16) wish to discover where these accounts are (i.e., which account provider they are with) I suggest they contact The Share Foundation (also known as ‘Sharefound’), which is a registered charity and works for the Department for Education as the organisation running the CTF and Junior ISA schemes for young people in care.

The Share Foundation also provides regular virtual events providing and discussing more details of above, which can be attended by young people aged 16 and over, parents, foster carers and professionals.

For details of these (and to access advice) visit https://findctf.sharefound.org  or you can ring them on 01269 310400. When using the search facility remember that the young person should have their National Insurance number at hand (provided by HMRC just after their 16^th birthday).

For children born after 02/01/2011 parents can currently open Junior ISAs on their children’s behalf, but government contributions are now only made for looked-after children and young people.

Adoption Support Worker 

(Fixed Term contract up to 31/03/2022 due to grant funding)

Regional Post – Location Negotiable 

24 hours per week

£22,183* – £25,991* (Grade F) *pro rata

Closing Date: 16/11/2021

This is an opportunity to join a well-performing , vibrant regional adoption service to play a leading role in developing support services for adoptive families in the region. 

The post includes working with colleagues as well as families affected by adoption focusing on reviewing adoption support and contact plans to ensure they are in line with the child’s needs. The adoption service uses a trauma-informed approach. There will be opportunities to undertake relevant training in order to develop the necessary skills and knowledge.

The post is grant funded, however, the funding is likely to continue after 31/03/2022.

This is a regional post but the base will be negotiated dependent on where you live and the need to provide services across the region.

Conversational Welsh is required to accomplish this post. Support can be provided on appointment to reach this level.

For an informal discussion please contact Frances Lewis 07733 102311.

A Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check will be requested for this post.

As part of the Council’s Policy and Procedure it is now a requirement that employees must register with the DBS Update Service for which there is an annual subscription fee of £13 borne by the individual.  The Authority will pay for the initial DBS check.

Adoption Mid & West Wales continue to offer eLearning courses for our adopters to complete in the comfort of one’s own home and to do in their own time. These courses have been created and developed by two learning platforms, KCA and ACEducation. The online courses aim to develop knowledge, skills and reflection as a part of the adopters ongoing learning journey. 

All online courses are free to Mid and West Wales adopters. Please contact us via email if you are interested in completing a course at adoptiontraining@carmarthenshire.gov.uk

A NEW campaign launched by the National Adoption Service for Wales hopes to encourage more people to adopt those children waiting the longest.

There are 119 children currently waiting to be adopted in Wales, with 29 of those children waiting for nine months or more.

For boys, sibling groups, children over three, and those with complex early histories, the wait to find a forever home can last a long time.

But a new campaign launched during National Adoption Week (18^th-23^rd October) wants to change all that by debunking the myth that babies and girls are easier to adopt.

To open the hearts and minds of potential adopters to those children currently waiting to find a family, #ChooseFamily will hear from parents across Wales about the realities of adopting a child, regardless of their age, sex, or if they are part of a sibling group.

Single mum Natasha adopted through Adoption Mid and West Wales in 2014. With an open mind, Tasha, researched adoption thoroughly before she began the process alone.

Tasha, who is a teacher, adopted siblings of Thai heritage – a three-year-old daughter and a 20-month-old boy – because she knew that boys, minority ethnic children and siblings typically wait the longest to be adopted.

She said: “It is made clear very early on that all adopted children will manifest their trauma in one way or another at some point in their life. Some of this you are prepared for, other times it can catch you completely off guard.”

“My daughter was the more anxious and hypersensitive of my two children. I think that because she was older when she went into care she has more of a recollection of neglect. My family knew to be more cautious and to give her extra reassurance when it was dark or there were loud noises – but one thing we didn’t prepare for is how petrified she was of balloons and anyone singing Happy Birthday.

“She couldn’t tell us why, but she was storing a memory we can only speculate about. It caused her to freeze and cry or come running to cling onto me. Other parents would ask why I insisted on bringing her along to parties, but I didn’t want her to miss out or have to ask the class not to celebrate birthdays, so we worked together over time to help her find coping strategies. Now, she has been to a few birthday sleepovers and will get up dancing at holiday kids’ club – she’s come a long way.”

“I remember having a friendly debate with a social worker about interracial adoption and feeling strongly about not letting the difference in our skin colour be a barrier. I was challenged on this as the social worker pointed out that I wouldn’t be the one growing up different.

“In many ways she was right, and thankfully, we have navigated the conversations about our differences easily. We have multi-ethnic friends and he often likes to point out when I am the odd one out in the car or on family holidays.

“The world is made up of so many different families and society and adoption have caught up with each other. Not only did that make it easier for me as a single person to adopt, having examples to show how the nuclear family is varied is helping my son to understand that everyone is different. Just the other day he asked me when he was getting a dad, because everyone has one. When we revisited the story of his birth father and started going through the list of family and friends who were unmarried, had lost partners or are in same sex couples, he wasn’t so concerned that it was just the three of us.”

Suzanne Griffiths, Director of the National Adoption Service for Wales, said: “We know from research conducted within adoption services in Wales that myths in relation to age and gender continue to exist; some prospective adopters believe that younger children present with fewer issues and others feel that girls are easier to care for.

“This is not always the case as all children have different needs and experiences and often the quieter child can be harder to work with.

“Sometimes we know less about the experiences of a younger child whereas we might have more detailed knowledge where an older child is concerned. For these older children we are often in a better position to predict any future support needs should they require it.”

National Adoption Service is asking for people to share the moments that made their family @nas_cymru #ChooseFamily to encourage others to choose to adopt.

For more information about adoption, visit adoptionmwwales.org.uk

Congratulations on becoming a parent. This is an exciting time as you start or extend your family.

The First 1000 Days project is here for you from day one, to offer a helping hand and a listening ear from a thriving community of fellow adopters across Wales.

• Advice and support via phone or email

• Free training courses on topics such as Life Journey Work, Education, and Contact

• Family days for adoptive families

• Local community groups, including ‘early days’ groups

• One-to-one support during tricky times

• A wealth of information and resources

At Adoption UK, we know how amazing family life can be. We also know that sometimes we all need a bit of support from other adopters who understand. Come and join the community.

Welcome to the First 1000 Days.

To join in, please visit www.adoptionuk.org/first-1000-days

Children are the unsung heroes of the Coronavirus Pandemic. Can you show us what you would look like as a Superhero? What kind of Superhero would you like to be?

You can do this by making a drawing, a painting, a collage, a comic, a short film or through photography. Maybe you’d rather show us by creating a 3D model using mixed materials, playdough or clay. You could even create your own costume or make a puppet using different materials.

Age Groups

• Under 4 years
• Ages 4 – 7
• Ages 8 – 11
• Ages 12 – 15
• Ages 16 – 18

All participants will receive a £10 voucher.

Prizes

Winners from each age group will win a day entry to an attraction of their choice.

Closing Date

Friday, 2^nd July 2021

To enter please complete an entry form and send your entries to us electronically via our website.

Guidelines & Rules

• One entry per child/ young person.
• Entries must be submitted by 5pm on Friday, 2^nd July 2021. Please send you entries in any of the following formats: pdf, jpeg, doc, mp3, m4a, mp4, wmv or avi.
• All submissions must be completed by the child or the young person.
• All participants will receive a voucher to the value of £10. A postal address must be provided on the entry form.
• Winners will be chosen by a panel of judges and announced on the 23^rd of July 2021.
• Winners will receive their prize shortly after the 23^rd of July 2021.

Adoption UK’s 2021 Survey

Take part in the 2021 Barometer Survey. Adoption UK need your responses to help contribute to a flagship report on Adoption in the UK, which will be published this summer. 

Whether you are a prospective adopter, or many years along in your adoption journey, Adoption UK want to hear your views. This is a thorough survey, so please take your time, and complete each section as fully as possible.

This survey is repeated every year so that they can build up a picture of how things are changing over time. Please focus only on your experiences during 2020. 

What is the Adoption Barometer?

The Adoption Barometer is the only comprehensive assessment of the lives of adoptive families across the UK – and the policies that govern adoption. Now in its second year, the Barometer explores families’ experiences throughout the adoption journey, from prospective adopters to those whose children are now young adults. 

It’s based on the biggest ever survey of adopters – in 2020, nearly 5,000 people responded. 

What impact does it have? 

Since their 2019 report, progress has been seen – In Wales there’s been a £2.3m investment in adoption services. 

The report shows that adopters remain positive and resilient –73% would encourage others to adopt. But families are still struggling to get the support they need and deserve.  

One of the main themes to emerge from this year’s report is the failure in diagnosing and treating brain damage caused by children being exposed to alcohol in the womb. The report reveals that one-in-four adopted children are either diagnosed with, or suspected to have, Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). 

More Information 

• Adoption UK’s Adoption Barometer 2020 launch event can be watched on our YouTube Channel.
• Hear from the author of the report and Adoption UK’s Education Policy Advisor, Rebecca Brooks as she runs through the highlights of the 2020 Barometer in this video.  
• Read Adoption UK’s full 2019 Adoption Barometer here or theExecutive Summary here.