Adoption Guide for young people
New Leaf Adoption
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What is this booklet about?
This booklet is all about adoption and will help you understand what it’s all
about, what you need to know and answer some of the questions you might
have.
Adoption can be quite complicated and there are lots of things going on, we
hope that by reading this booklet things might be a little clearer. Maybe you
can look through it with someone like your Foster carer, your Social worker or
even your Adopters. We will make sure they are given one too, sometimes it’s
good to keep and look at later too.
Who are New Leaf?
Well New Leaf Adoption is a small family run agency, Collette and Iain set the
agency up, they are both Social Workers who have worked for many years in
Social Work and adoption as well as being an adopted child and birth mother
themselves. They set the agency up because they wanted to do a really good
job in finding families for children because they have been through it
themselves. We have Social workers and Support workers who are all here to
help you and your family work! We think it’s an exciting and great thing to do
and we all get a lot of happiness in seeing families coming together.
What is Adoption?
A birth family is the family you were
born into, unfortunately sometimes
they just can’t look after a child,
sometimes they are ill and
sometimes there are other reasons.
An adopted family is when a child
and adoptive parents come
together to make a family, adopted
parents work really hard to show
that they are great parents and a
lot of people are involved to work
out which child best ‘fits’ with each
adopters.
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So how does adoption actually work?
The Process and how people become adopters
People who want to become families come to us, it’s our job to find out as
much about them as possible to see if they can make great parents.
We get to know them really well and find out all about them and whether or
not they would make good parents, this is called an ‘assessment’. It’s only
when we are very sure they would make great parents that we would put them
forward to our ‘Panel’.
The Panel is a group of ordinary people who know about children and adoption
and want to help to bring families together. The panel meet and talk about the
adopters, look at reports we have written about them, meet them and after
asking lots of questions decide whether they also think the people could
become adoptive parents, it’s not easy but for a child to go to a family it has to
be a nice place to live with people who can be really good parents!
After the panel it is really only the beginning! New Leaf workers start to look
for exactly the right child for each family, sometimes it can happen quickly but
sometimes it takes a lot longer, really it doesn’t matter so long as it’s the right
‘fit’ or ‘match’ for the child and the parents. Lots of people are involved in
making the decision from Social workers working with the council (or ‘The local
authority’ as it’s also called) as well as workers at New Leaf. Every child is
important and so is the decision about where that child should live, it’s all
about people who know you, and people who know the adopters really well
getting together and deciding whether you ‘fit’ together! Social Workers have
lots of names for things (probably too many!) we call this ‘the matching
process’.
Once we find the right ‘match’ or ‘fit’ we have to go to yet another panel of
people to talk about it and look at all the information, again it’s about trying to
make sure it’s the right choice for you. It’s only after this that you get to meet
the adopters and spend time with them and eventually come to live with them.
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What will it be like in your new family?
Well hopefully the answer will be ‘great’ but sometimes it takes everyone a
little time to get used to things. That is totally normal. There will be people
coming to visit all the time to make sure you are ok and to see if there is
anything you need, there will be people from New Leaf and people from the
council visiting a lot to make sure everything is going ok. Sometimes it’s all a
bit new and you all might need someone to talk to or to help with things, but
that’s what we are all here for.
Just like when you were in foster care you will still be ‘looked after’ and so still
have looked after reviews and still have all the people meeting and talking
about what you need and if you are happy, you will still see the Reviewing
Officer, so if you need to talk to someone there are plenty or people around to
talk to about everything and anything.
It is only when everyone is sure this is right for you that a Judge decides to
make the ‘Adoption order’, this means that you will be legally part of this new
family. It is a celebration so it is called a ‘Celebration day’.
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Even after the Celebration day New Leaf workers will visit you and your new
family for a long time to make sure everything is ok and will be there to help in
any way you or your family might need. We do all sorts of things; it all
depends on what is needed.
We also have lots of things like parties and days out when you can meet and
talk to other adopted children and young people, they are really good fun and
a great way to make friends.
Life Story Work
Sometimes children need to know more about
their pasts or to put memories and things that
are important in order, this is called ‘life story
work’. We would go through all the important
things about you that have happened, and let
you talk about people and things and ask
questions. A lot of young people find it really
helpful in thinking about things, you should
never feel bad for asking or speaking about your
past, it also helps everyone understand who
you are!
Contact
You will probably have seen people like parents or brothers and sisters a lot in
foster care. When you are adopted things are different but a lot of children
and young people like to have some contact to make sure everyone is ok. It’s
called ‘letter box contact’ ... yes another name for something! What it means
is that if you want to you can send a letter, usually once a year, to people who
were important to you, you can get letters back too. Your adopters and the
Social Workers will help with this and make sure everything goes well, after all
it’s what you need that is important!
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If you have a problem
If you are unhappy about anything or even want to
complain about anything there are people you can
talk to, it could be someone who works for New Leaf
or your Fosters carers, Social Worker or Reviewing
officer. Even a teacher at school if you wanted. We
will all try to help you, it might be something that
can be fixed easily, if it’s more complicated other
people might need to look at it.
One thing you might want to do is make a complaint about something if you
really feel strongly about it, again everyone is there to help you. An
‘Independent person’, someone who is not connected to anyone you normally
see will look into things properly, listen to you and make up their own mind
about what has happened and what it is best to do. If your problem still isn’t
solved a group of people called an ‘appeals panel’ will look into things more.
There are lots of things we can do to help, the first step is to speak to someone
and tell them what is wrong.
New Leaf has to have a ‘Statement of Purpose’, which is a booklet which
explains the things that the people who work for New Leaf Adoption think is
important, just tell us if you would like to have a look!
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What I think about things!
The next page is for you to write down what you think about
things, what you want or anything you like! We would love to
know!
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Tell us what you think! … Write it down here!
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Here are some people who can help you if you want to speak to
someone
Anyone at New Leaf Adoption, you will have met us all lots of times and we all would be there to
listen to any problem you might have.
New Leaf Adoption
2a Railway Street,
Pocklington,
York,
YO42 2QZ
Tel: 0800 096 0410 or 01759 303 979
Or if you wanted to call the people who check we are all doing a good job they would listen too.
They are called Ofsted you can contact them at:
Ofsted
Piccadilly Gate
Store Street
Manchester
M12WD
Tel: 0300 123 1231
Or the children’s commission:
The Children’s Commissioner for England
The Office of the Children’s Commissioner
Sanctuary Buildings
20 Great Smith Street
London
SW1P3BT
Tel: 02077838330
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Names and numbers of people I know:
My Social Worker is called:
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Their telephone number is:
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Their email address is:
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My New Leaf Worker is
called:
Their telephone number is:
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Their email address is:
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My Reviewing officer is called:
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Their telephone number is:
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Their email address is:
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Other people who I see:
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Remember that we are all here to bring families together and make sure
things work out great. We hope you will be really happy in your adopted
family, remember we are always here to listen and to help.
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