2. Registering and checks

Registering and checks
So you have found an agency you like and have registered with them and you adoption journey now begins! Prepare yourself as you will need a lot of patience as you enter the adoption process.

Once you register your interest with an agency you will move into what is known as Stage One. The agency will gather some basic information from you about you, your circumstances and you family. They may look at your home, ask about finances, what family life looks like, ask about your support network or ask about your experience with children. We are fortunate that we have a lot of experience with a varied age range of children. If you do not have any contact with children personally or professionally then you could always volunteer somewhere to give you some.


This is the stage where the agency will also do some preliminary checks before they can approve you to move on to Stage Two. Be honest at this stage because things that are not disclosed and come out later will delay the process. They will request a medical or Health Assessment (usually your GP), this is then sent to the agency medical adviser. The purpose of this is to ensure that you are medically fit enough to care for children. Even if you have an underlying medical condition don’t be disheartened as this does not rule you out, it may just mean that they need further information about it or recommendations about what additional support could be put in place. If you smoke then speak to the agency as they often have strict rules around this, you often need to be smoke free for 6-12 months to be considered. Our GP was quite slow so this took some chasing on our part.

The agency will request some family and non-family references. These will vary depending on your circumstances but they are often people who know you best or form part of your local support network such as parents, siblings, uncles, aunts or friends.

In some circumstances they may want to speak to ex-partners if you were with them for a long period of time or married. They won’t expect you to hunt them down, but if you are still in contact directly or indirectly they may want to speak to them. This will obviously be case sensitive, so if it would not be appropriate for them to speak to them then it would be unlikely they would.

The agency will complete a criminal background check (DBS) and Local Authority check (places you have lived). Again, be honest about this from the offset if you have had any contact with Social Services or the police. It does not necessarily exclude you from the process depending on the type of offence, but it is something the agency will need to know about and discuss with you.

If you have pets they may consider doing a pet assessment. Some may do this for every case or some may only do it if they deem it necessary, we have a dog and they did not do any formal assessments because he was really friendly. Whereas some agencies may automatically do them even if you have a teacup chihuahua.

You will likely be asked to attend some training with other prospective adopters. This will cover a variety of subjects to develop your understanding of adoption, parenting skills and explore the needs of adopted children. Go into this training with an open mind, I work with Looked After Children and have trained in child development, attachment, trauma etc  but I found the training very useful and insightful. You often get to hear first-hand experiences of adopters as well, to help paint a picture of what the reality of parenting an adoptive child can be like. We had a good experience of this, we found the training interesting and useful. It is also a good opportunity to make some links with other adopters from your area.

All of the information gathered in Stage One will determine if the agency will recommend moving you onto stage two. You can choose to have a break between the stages or they may recommend it if there are some issues that need resolving first.

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