Families willing to adopt siblings urged to come forward in a bid to keep brothers and sisters together this National Adoption Week.
Together for Adoption is looking to recruit new adopters who will take siblings, to ensure children are placed with loving families as soon as possible.
At times, the organisation sees an influx of sibling groups, so Together for Adoption needs suitable adopters ready to provide welcoming homes.
Councillor Nova Charlton, cabinet member for protecting young people at St Helens Borough Council, said: “Together for Adoption welcomes adopters of all kind as we’re here to support people to make their families complete – however, we have duty of care for our children and keeping brothers and sisters together is a key priority.
“It helps them feel settled, reassured and secure when placed in their new homes and also means we can match adopters much more quickly. If we don’t have adopters that are able to take siblings, we need to look outside of the Together for Adoption area, which can create a delay for our children and mean they are placed with a family in a new area.”
“Here at St Helens Borough Council, our very own dedicated adoption team were recently rewarded for their outstanding work in making a difference through their work with children and families – and we’d love nothing more than to ensure positive outcomes for even more children by securing permanence through a plan of adoption. ”
Together for Adoption brings together the services of five local authority areas, Wigan Borough, St Helens Borough, Halton, Cheshire West and Chester and Warrington and since its launch three years ago, 125 new adopters have been approved.
Sarah and Tom* are from Warrington. They adopted two sisters two years ago.
Sarah* said: “Adoption is the most rewarding event you will ever experience in your life and adopting siblings gives you a complete family in one go. If your social worker believes you can cope with siblings, then give the topic the serious consideration. Yes, you will have doubts, but you would have doubts about adopting one anyway! Having these feelings is completely natural, don’t be afraid, go for it.
“The magical moments they have both given us and their grandparents will never be forgotten. In many ways we think it is easier to have siblings as the girls have definitely kept each other occupied for periods of time. At the end of the day it’s all about a routine, put a good routine in place and you will get the amazing rewards.”
Together for Adoption is also supporting the national #YouCanAdopt campaign, which was launched in September to dispel the myths around who is eligible to adopt.
Councillor Charlton added: “Some of the biggest misconceptions around eligibility are that single people, older people and the LGBTQ community are not allowed to adopt, which is fundamentally not the case, so we’re supporting the national #YouCanAdopt campaign to empower these groups of people specifically.
“They could prove to be invaluable to a child or children and could offer so much love and care.”
National Adoption Week this year runs between 12 – 18 October.
For more information about adoption, visit www.togetherforadoption.co.uk
