England’s toddlers looking for a home

Fertility in England and Wales is at record low levels of 1.41 births per woman. It’s a trend replicated across Europe, including in countries traditionally seen as family-friendly like Spain and Italy. Meanwhile, the average age of parents has risen. People are waiting longer to have children and are sometimes finding it harder to have them. So finding adoptive parents for young children in need of a family should be getting easier, right? Wrong, according to Dame Carol Homden, chief executive of children’s charity Coram, a major voluntary adoption agency in England.

“Adoption matches and placements are down, but that is not because of a fall in the number of children,” Homden told The Sentinel in an interview, adding that in Britain:

“What is of profound concern is that we have more than 3,000 children waiting and we only have half the number of adopters.”

There are several reasons for a lack of potential adopters, according to Homden, starting with an ageing population.

“We have a demographic time bomb. We have a change in the demographics of the UK, a change in our population which means that the population is older. There are many people post-retirement playing a key role in the lives of their grandchildren. But for the parent age group, or what we normally think of as the parent age group, there are fewer of them.”

Brexit, inflation and war shocks are also taking their toll.

“It is ordinary people who do this extraordinary thing of adopting children, and the cost of living crisis has been a great concern,” Homden said.

“It’s increasingly difficult for young people to leave home and to have the housing that they need to form a family, combined with the cost of childcare, as a great many more women are in the workforce.”

Homden said that parents were “a squeezed middle that’s facing very high childcare costs and increasing burdens for their elderly relatives.”

In addition, scientific advances in IVF have reduced demand for adoption from would-be parents who have had difficulties in bearing their own children, Homden said.

Adoption also faces a barrage of negative publicity, with tales of adoptions which fall apart, Homden added:

“Good news is never news. There is a negative discourse that is drowning out the voice of the many, many children who say they love their adopters, and of the vast majority of adopters who say that it can be tough, but that they would do it again.”

Homden said it may be time to consider different ways of looking after children.

“We are going to need to adapt our ways of thinking about how people can help, even if they are not able to help us full time.”

With divorce high in Britain, one group of people who could be a natural fit for adoption are “second time arounders, where one of the partners has teenagers,” according to Homden.

There is no upper age limit on adoption in Britain, though Homden said Coram took into account the physical toll of looking after young children. “There is a sense check. Health conditions are considered quite carefully.”

There are also no restrictions on adoption by same-sex parents or single parents in Britain.  Joint adoption by same-sex partners is permitted in only 36 countries worldwide, according to the United Nations Population Fund.

“Coram has been welcoming people of all backgrounds for a very long time,” Homden said.”

Established as The Foundling Hospital in London by Thomas Coram in 1739 as a home for babies whose mothers were unable to care for them, Coram operates adoption services in London and the southeast of England.

Homden said that the vast majority of children who are adopted are under the age of five, with most between two and four.

Former primary school teacher Anne, a single woman of Black Caribbean descent, adopted her two daughters, birth siblings Emily and Rachel, through Coram in 2021 and 2022. Her network of family and friends were supportive of her decision, she said in comments provided to The Sentinel by Coram.

“I knew it was going to be really tough to adopt as a single parent. But I had faith that this was the right thing for me to do,” she said.

“I remember just always having a heart for those children who kind of didn’t fit into the mainstream in different ways. Being around children who were maybe looked-after, or they were known to social care, it really made me think this was something I wanted to do.” 

“Adopting children who are birth siblings I think is really important for their life story and having that connection. I am getting used to taking care of someone else’s needs, we are having new experiences and getting to know each other.” 

Same-sex parents Ben and Adam adopted siblings Lydia and Spencer, and later another child, Jamie, through Coram, according to comments provided to The Sentinel. Ben is a former mental health nurse and a qualified social worker, with experience of working with vulnerable children.

Lydia and Spencer, aged two and one at that time, were the first children Ben and Adam were put in touch with.  “I remember the night before the confirmation on whether we would be their adoptive parents,” Ben said. “The waiting then was the hardest part of everything, we couldn’t sleep because of excitement and nerves. But it was a wonderful process and exciting.” 

Ben added that: “adoption is a very different form of parenting to biological parenting and I think it’s quite hard to understand that before you do it, so we try to explain the realities to anyone considering it. Adopting our children is absolutely, one hundred per cent the best thing we ever did, no doubt about that.”

Editorial note: Names have been changed to protect the identities of the families.