04 February 2019

Our friendly and experienced team is here to help with your adoption journey

Are you thinking of adopting? Aberdeenshire Council’s experienced and supportive adoption team offers a range of assistance and advice to anyone affected by adoption.

In the most recent inspection by the Care Inspectorate in March 2017 the adoption team received an “excellent”, top rating in quality of care and support and quality of staffing.

The report said: “Adopters reported extremely high-quality inputs from the preparation groups, particularly where they heard directly from children or young people who had experienced adoption. They told us that staff were fully supportive, inclusive and respectful of both themselves and their wider families when undertaking assessment process.”

Cllr Gillian Owen, Aberdeenshire Council’s Education and Children’s Services Committee chair, said: “There are children in Aberdeenshire who desperately need families so if you are considering adoption, I would encourage you to register for the preparation to adopt course to see if adoption is for you.”

“The team are friendly, supportive and have a wealth of knowledge about the process of adoption. They take great care in matching children with families as well as using techniques and strategies to help children and their new family’s bond together in a loving and caring environment.”

The adoption team offers a full in-house permanence planning service for our children, so that wherever possible our children can move in to live with adoptive families in the north east, that the adoption team has recruited, prepared and have a good working relationship with. This ensures consistency as the team know the child and the adoptive family and can share knowledge and tailor support accordingly. 

The team also offer concurrency planning for children aged under two-years of age where children are placed with families, who may go on to adopt them should they be unable to return to their birth family, minimising the trauma of losing primary carers in their very early formative months and years.

Further to this, the team provide post adoption support to families, both informally and with tailored learning and development opportunities and are currently developing post adoption services for 2019 in response to feedback from those who have used our service.

The next “preparation to adopt” course takes place from 9:30am to 4pm on Friday, March 8, Monday, March 11, Friday, March 15 and Friday, March 22 at Aberdeenshire Council’s Woodhill House headquarters in Aberdeen. Participants must be able attend each day to complete the course.

Our family finding never stops, however and there will be a further “preparation to adopt course” in September also at Woodhill House. The dates for this course are: Friday, September 13, Monday, September 16, Friday, September 20 and Friday, September 27.

For more information or if you would like to attend one of our Preparation to Adopt Courses and to arrange for an experienced adoption worker to meet with you, please contact us on  01467 532800 or adoption@aberdeenshire.gov.uk  We look forward to hearing from you.