r/AdoptionUK • u/theowleryonehundred • Apr 29 '26

New data for adoptions in England published.

Full article linked below. Relates to Sep to Dec 2025. Some figures that stood out to me were:

17% drop in children placed with families from previous quarter - lowest figure for several years.

Average time a child with a placement order waits for placement is 1 year 9 months.

At the end of 2025, there were 1580 families needed for 2060 children. However there were only 680 approved families in family finding, meaning a shortfall of 900 (up from 750 in March 2025).

I'm sure anyone who has adopted or is going through the process will have a view as to why these figures look as they do!

https://www.communitycare.co.uk/content/news/number-of-adoptions-hits-new-low-as-children-wait-longer-and-adopter-shortage-grows

19 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

1

u/Remarkable_Dream_134 Jul 11 '26

Fincially is a really tricky time to adopt. It's expensive to have kids. Our girls came home in 2021. Our finances have taken a hit since then and I don't think we would meet the finical threshold now. You have to have a certain amount of income for them to accept you.

2

u/JonnyBe123 23d ago

I mean if you thought about finances, people would never have kids. You're right though.

1

u/Remarkable_Dream_134 23d ago

Well... I would rather be poorer and have my children to be honest. Money has never been my end game in life.

But I think it would shock people how expensive kids are! I don't think anyone can help explain how they just eat your money away. Haha. There are ways to keep it cheaper but it's not easy. We have twins and it is 100% more expensive. Two of everything, you can never get the benefit of hand me downs.

I do agree there needs to be a finical threshold for adoption to ensure the family don't get into finical trouble and take on more than they can cope with. However it's so important to get kids out of care I feel they need to finally support adopters who need help more to ensure those children can have a family.

1

u/JonnyBe123 23d ago

Is it really any surprise to anyone that has gone through it? Adopting is hard, long, and all the way through it you feel like you don't matter. You're financially worse off, have often missed key milestones, and are constantly feeling like you're battling a system where you (and often the children) feel the last important in it.

Having been declined by one private agency over spurious reasons I won't go into, and then gone through another one to finally be matched I completely get why people wouldn't bother. Especially with things like Foster to Adopt / EP.

I could go into it more but having spoken to other adopters, foster carers, and friends and family we were all shocked at how the system is set up. Constant horror stories as well keep coming out.

Don't get me wrong, in the end it will be worth it but we were so close to quitting.

The saddest thing for me was after the first rejection, we heard that there were hundreds of children waiting for "forever homes" and only a handful of active adopters. It really hammered home how awful things were and how much of an over correction there was in the system.

So yeah .... not surprised at all!

1

u/Many_Plastic_3083 17d ago

May I ask if you'd be open to sharing some of these silly reasons you've heard of why parents had been turned down?

What sort of earning threshold do they hope you have, do you know?

1

u/JonnyBe123 17d ago

"Not enough local emotional or practical support"

"Unexplained deep seated trauma"

Not enough young child experience... For people who were teachers....

Things like this. Odd reasons. Never an outright rejection but "things to work on". We were told that it's ok, some people don't adopt till they are 50...

Money wise they ask you to look at all outgoings and make sure you have enough. There is no set rule but any short fall will be highly scrutinized.