Adoption Now celebrates 1st birthday

One of the region’s top adoption agencies, Adoption Now, is celebrating a successful first year of finding forever families for local children who need them. The north-west based agency, which combines local authority adoption services from Blackburn with Darwen, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale and Tameside, was one of the first regional adoption agencies to go live across the country on 20th November 2017.

Since then the agency has approved over 68 sets of adopters, matched 135 families with children, placed 167 children with their new families and hosted numerous events from activity days to toddler groups and more.

Karen Barrick, Head of Service at Adoption Now, said: “Adoption to me means giving our children, who’ve had particularly difficult starts in life, the chance to enjoy playing, growing and learning in safe and loving environments, so that they can reach their full potential. That’s why I’m so proud of the good work our team has done in the past year and I’m looking forward to the years ahead, helping more and more children and adults to become loving families."

Karen continues "There’s still a lot of work to be done to find the adopters we need for our children so whether you’re married, single, in a same-sex relationship, are white British, have a different ethnicity other than white British or are just that little bit older, we need you so get in touch today.”

To celebrate their first year the agency invited staff, adoptive parents and prospective adopters to a special party to share their adoption stories, find potential matches for children awaiting adoption and look forward to a bigger and better second year. The theme of the party was ‘A year can change your life’ which highlighted how much adopter’s lives can change from picking up the phone to the moment they meet their children and beyond.

David and Tracey were one of the first couples to be approved by Adoption Now in November 2017. After adopting their first son the couple decided to extend their family with a second child and were matched with their daughter in June this year.

David said: “The best bit about family life for me is coming home to a full house, being greeted by two children, two dogs, a cat and Tracey is great, I just love the hustle and bustle of it. Then it’s bath time, bed time, story time and that’s what it’s all about.”

Tracey added: “and the kitchen dancing! We just have fun you know and it’s the best thing we’ve ever done. The kids are part of our family and you just have a much better, fuller life with them in it.” you can hear more about David and Tracey's experience in this interview.

For their second year Adoption Now are launching a ‘Help us to 100’ recruitment campaign which aims to help them reach their goal of approving 100 sets of adopters, from all walks of life. There are currently more than 80 children waiting for families with the agency. The children, much like adopters come from a variety of backgrounds, some need to be placed with brothers and sisters, others may have disabilities or health conditions and others are just that little bit older.