What you wanted to know about adoption

Barnardo’s Cymru seeks prospective adoptive parents for children with additional needs. We seek parents for single children of school age and above, groups of brothers and sisters who need to stay together, Black/Asian and African children or children of mixed race and disabled children/ children with developmental delay or medical conditions of any age.

Children who need adoptive parents are unable to remain with their birth families and it has been decided that adoption is in the child’s best interests.

Adoption involves you as the child’s new parent gaining full legal responsibility for the welfare of that child and transfers parental rights from the birth parents to the adoptive parents. Adoption is a legal process where the final outcome of the suitability of the child’s placement with you is decided by the court.

An adoption order severs all ties with the birth family and transfers parental rights to the new adoptive family. Your child becomes a full member of your family and takes your surname and assumes the same rights and privileges as if he had been born to you, including the right of inheritance.

In certain circumstances a child may maintain contact with certain members of their birth family. This may be visiting a brother or sister who lives elsewhere or letter box contact with a birth parent. In every decision made about continuation of contact, the child’s safety and wellbeing are of paramount importance. Contact and your views about it will be a part of the discussion during the assessment process.

Adoption is a way of providing children with a new family and the opportunity to have a stable, secure and loving childhood.

Barnardo’s Cymru believes that every child has a right to family life and has a successful history of placing children across Wales in new adoptive families.