Are you considering either fostering or adopting but not sure which route best suits your personal goals and circumstances?
Understanding the differences between fostering and adopting is crucial before making any decisions about expanding your family, whether on a temporary or permanent basis.
Familiarising yourself with all information you can find on fostering and adoption will help you make an informed decision on which one suits your needs and goals the best.
Either route will change your life (for the better of course).
Both offer invaluable support and stability to children in need, but there are fundamental differences between adoption and fostering – each provide different outcomes for children and young people.
what’s the main difference between fostering and adopting?
Adoption
Simply put, adoption is where you become the legal parent of a child, with all the rights and responsibilities that come with parenthood. They take your name; they are legally part of your family. It is permanent. They no longer have direct contact with their birth parents or potentially their wider family. Adoption provides a child with a forever home, offering a sense of permanency and belonging.
Fostering
Fostering is where foster carers provide a temporary or long-term home for children who cannot live with their birth family. Foster carers offer a stable, loving and nurturing environment while the child’s birth family work to overcome challenges so the children can return home, or until other permanent arrangements are made – this could be adoption or long-term foster care.
The local authority and the child’s birth parent/s or guardians retain legal responsibility for the child. However, foster carers and teams within the council, work together to achieve the best outcomes of the child.
As a foster carer, you care for and parent that child, which can be on a short or long-term basis.
Foster care allows children to maintain connections with their birth families where appropriate, promoting a sense of identity and continuity.
Fostering can facilitate growth and healing which can be invaluable for a child.
When it comes to fostering, there are still many myths that exist around who can foster. Read our blog which will debunk many of the misconceptions.
This blog will explain in more detail the main differences between fostering and adopting. It will also explain the different options available under each of them.
- The process – What’s involved?
- Timescales – How long does it take until a child comes to live with you?
- Support – What support is provided?
- The duration a child is with you – How long will this be?
- Decision making – Who can make decisions?
- Staying in touch with birth family – What happens?
- Financial considerations – Do you get paid?
- Fostering and adoption options – What routes are available?
1. the process – what’s involved?
The process to adopt or foster is very similar.
- You’ll speak to a member of the fostering or adoption team. This is where you can get more information and have the opportunity to ask any questions.
- A member of either team will come out and visit you in your home. They will ask you more questions, simply to get to know you better and assess your suitability to foster or adopt
- You will then attend pre- approval training
- A member of the specific team will then carry out an assessment – this part of the process is more in-depth and will involve the whole family. The assessment will take 4-6 months to complete
- You then attend either foster or adoption panel where you will be recommended for approval
Adoption
The adoption process requires potential adopters to undergo a thorough assessment to ensure they can provide a stable and loving environment. Though adoptive families receive support from the adoption service, adoption is a legally binding commitment by an adoptive family to be a child’s forever family, with no legal ties remaining to the birth parents.
Also, the child’s birth parent/s must agree to consent to the adoption, unless:
- They can’t be located
- They are incapable of giving consent
- The child would be at risk if they were not adopted
Fostering
The fostering process is also a thorough process. Ultimately, a fostering service needs to be confident that an applicant/s is suitable to provide a stable, safe and loving home to children, regardless of whether they foster on a short or long-term basis.
2. timescales – how long does it take until a child comes to live with you?
Fostering
Once you are approved as a foster carer, a child could arrive the very next day, or perhaps in a week or two. In reality, your first placement is likely to take place quite quickly. This is simply because there are many foster children who need a home. However, matching the right child with the right family is our priority so we need to make sure it’s right for everyone.
Adoption
This may take much longer and there are several factors which will affect the timescales.
Western Bay Adoption is the local adoption agency for Swansea, Neath Port Talbot, and Bridgend. Whilst you’re being assessed, they may have a child in mind for you to adopt but naturally they need to wait until you are formally approved.
Once approved as an adopter, your details will be added to the Adoption Register Wales so that you can be considered for children from across Wales.
Your social worker will start working with their Family Finding Adoption Team to identify children whose needs you could meet.
If the adoption social workers feel there is a baby or young child who is a perfect match, then the process involved is:
- They will start a process of matching
- Introductions will take place – this will involve the child’s foster carer
- The child will move in
- An Adoption Order is granted – the child is legally yours
The process of identifying the right child for adopters does vary. Often, it will take at least another 3 – 6 months from approval. Sometimes it can take even longer.
The time it takes for you to be matched to a child is usually dependent on your criteria – the age of the child/ren you wish to adopt, the number of children you are looking to adopt, and whether you are willing to consider children with complex needs or those with medical conditions.
If are wanting to adopt a baby, then usually the matching process can take longer. However, this can be sped up if you are:
- open to children with a wider age range
- able to adopt more than one child or a sibling group
- willing to adopt children with complex needs or those with medical conditions
The timescales are also dependent on the children who are waiting to find adopter/s at that specific time.
3. support – what support is provided?
Whether you want to foster or adopt, having support is vital – whether that’s from family, friends, colleagues, employers, fellow adopters or other foster carers.
Caring for children who have experienced trauma isn’t easy and can come with challenges. It’s important that you never feel alone. However, whether you decide to foster or adopt, you will receive support from either the fostering or adoption service.
Both Foster Wales Swansea and Western Bay Adoption will be there every step of the way.
Support from Foster Wales Swansea
You will receive a wealth of support from Foster Wales Swansea. You will receive regular visits from your social worker, as well as your allocated support worker. The child’s social worker will also visit your house, mainly to support the child but will also provide support where needed.
You will also receive a wealth of informal support from the fostering service so you are well-equipped to provide the necessary care and stability for any child.
There is also an expectation that you will attend training courses and adopt a flexible learning approach to help develop your skills and experience as a foster carer.
Foster carers are financially supported for every child they care for.
Whether you receive support from your employer will depend on whether they are ‘fostering friendly’ or adopt a flexible working policy. Foster Wales Swansea encourages all local businesses to consider becoming fostering friendly if they aren’t already.
It gives foster carers additional annual leave so they can take time to settle a child into their new fostering family, attend training, or anything else relating to the fostering role.
Support from Western Bay Adoption
Once you’ve been matched to a child and they have transitioned from their foster carer to you as the adopter, you will be visited and supported by your adoption social worker and the child’s social worker.
During the matching process, an Adoption Support Plan will be developed for the child which will take into account their needs now and what they are likely to need in the future.
There will be regular visits to your home and the placement will be reviewed in accordance with the Adoption Regulations, to make sure that all is well and that your child’s needs and those of the family are being met. Ultimately, you can access the level of adoption support that you need, as and when you need it.
The Courts will not consider an Adoption application until the child/ren has lived with you for at least 10 weeks. Often it is considerably longer as everyone needs to feel that the child has settled within the family, and everyone within the adoptive family is on board with becoming a new or extended family.
Once an application to adopt has been lodged in the court, the court process begins. You will be kept informed of the progress each step of the way. Courts can sometimes take a few months to grant an Adoption Order. Once this is done, you legally become the child’s parent.
You will also be able to access support from the Western Bay Adoption’s Post Adoption Team. They are skilled at supporting families and children who are experiencing difficulties or need guidance and advice. Most adopters will access this support, recognising the benefits.
As an adopter, any financial support such as adoption allowance, will only be available in some cases. However, adopters who are employed are legally entitled to adoption leave, similar to maternity and paternity leave.
4. the duration a child is with you – how long will this be?
Whether a child is with you forever, for a short period of time, or for many years, depends on whether you foster or adopt.
Fostering
Many people say that would love to foster but they are put off by having to say goodbye to the children. They fear that they’d get too attached. But actually, getting attached is a positive thing because it shows how much you care and love the children. That’s exactly what we want for our foster carers.
There’s no denying that moving a child on is hard and the emotions you feel when they leave should never be minimised or taken for granted. When a foster carer moves a child on, they could be helping to transition a child back to their family, onto adoption, onto independent living, or moving them to foster carers who can commit to look after them on a long-term arrangement.
But when a child leaves, it doesn’t have to be goodbye forever. Many of our foster carer keep in touch with the children they’ve cared for. This is either directly through the children (if older) or via families, foster carers or adopters.
Children can only benefit from having lots of people in their lives who love and care for them.
Ultimately, the goal in fostering is to return children to their family if it is safe to do so. If that’s not possible, then they will continue to live with foster carers who can provide a secure and loving family environment, all whilst maintaining contact with family and friends. The children become part of your family, but not in any official capacity.
If the idea of caring for children for short periods of time doesn’t suit you, then long-term fostering might be a better fit. This is where a child can live with you until they reach 18 years or beyond.
Adoption
In adoption, it’s very straightforward. The child becomes a legal and permanent member of your family. You are their parent. They are with you forever.
5. decision making – who can make decisions?
Fostering
When you foster, the parental responsibility is shared between the birth parent and the local authority, who then delegates responsibility to the foster carer.
When a child goes to live with a foster carer, it will be decided what day-to-day decisions the carer can make themselves. However, certain decisions will be made jointly by the child’s social workers, birth family and foster carers.
Foster carers are told what decisions they can or can’t make so that everything is transparent and there is no confusion.
Adoption
When you adopt a child, you become their parent. It’s your responsibility to make decisions about every aspect of your child’s life – from what school they attend, to whether they can go on a school trip, receive any medical treatment, or go over to a friend’s house.
6. staying in touch with birth family – what happens?
Whether you are a foster carer or an adopter, maintaining positive relationships with birth family is so important for children. It helps them to understand their past and move forward into the future in a positive way.
Fostering
As a foster carer, contact with the child’s birth family might be as frequently as daily or weekly, particularly for children who have recently come into care, young babies or children who are likely to return to birth family. This is usually face-to-face in the local community.
Most of the time, family time is co-ordinated by contact workers who are employed by the local authority. In some cases, foster carers will manage contact with family directly.
For longer term fostering, the frequency of contact with family members might reduce to monthly, a couple of times a year, or even annually.
Adoption
Children should always know that they are adopted from an early age, ideally before they are of school age. They should know who their ‘birth family’ are – this will help them understand their history, develop a sense of identity, and will help them to connect with their birth relatives.
Depending on the adoption arrangement, an adopted child may keep in touch with siblings or other family members who are important to them. The frequency and type of contact will be different for every child – it all depends on what is in the best interest of the child.
Most will have indirect contact via a Letter Box arrangement which is managed by the adoption agency. For some children, this is all it will ever be, or as the child grows up, they might begin to have more direct contact with birth relatives.
Whatever is decided, it has to be based on what the child needs or wants.
7. financial considerations – do you get paid?
Fostering
Foster carers receive a weekly child allowance to cover the cost of caring for a child and then a carer fee for their time and skills in looking after a child. They are paid a child allowance and carer fee for every child placed with them.
The minimum you will receive from Foster Wales Swansea is £442 per week, per child. The payment a foster carer receives, is dependent on the age of the child, as well as their needs. To find out more about foster carer pay, read our blog.
Adoption
If you adopt through a local authority, then unlike private/independent adoption agencies, you won’t have to pay adoption agency fees which can cost thousands of pounds.
Adoption parents might be eligible for an adoption allowance, which is a means-tested payment to help with the costs of raising an adopted child.
Some adoptive parents might be eligible for the Adoption Support Fund, which is a government funded scheme that provides financial support for therapeutic services for children who have been adopted.
8. fostering and adoption options – what routes are available?
Most people will simply decide between becoming a foster carer or an adopter but there are more options to consider.
Fostering then adopting
There are a small number of foster carers who have adopted the children in their care. However, this isn’t very common and the goal of fostering is not adoption. Firstly, the care plan for many of the children or young people in foster care is long-term fostering and not adoption. Secondly, just because a foster carer puts themselves forward to adopt a child, where their care plan is adoption, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the foster carer will automatically be chosen as the adopter. It’s all down to matching and the decision is made by the child’s social worker, along with the adoption service.
Also, being approved as a foster carer is not the same as being approved as an adoptive parent, so you will have to go through the approval process to adopt.
You’ll also need consider how your relationship with birth parents may be affected if you were chosen to be the child’s adopter/s.
Early permanence
In Wales, there is now the option to ‘foster to adopt’.
Known as Welsh Early Permanence (WEP), this type of adoption involves a small percentage of children in care, whose care plans are likely to result in adoption.
Welsh Early Permanence carers are dually approved as both adopters and foster carers. Potential adopters basically foster the child whilst the decision about their care plan is being confirmed.
Babies or toddlers are placed with these carers from as early as possible and before the plan for adoption has been confirmed by the court.
You’ll be assessed, trained and supported as a foster carer during this time.
If the court agrees a plan of adoption for the child, there will be a seamless transition without the child having to move from their foster carers with whom they have already formed a bond with. The WEP carer would go from the baby’s foster carer to adoptive parent.
However, it is vital to note that when the child/baby is placed with a WEP carer/s, they are their foster carer, not adoptive parent as this stage. For example, they can’t use the name ‘mum/dad’ and their wider family can’t be called ‘grandparents/aunts/uncles’. Only when they officially become the child’s adoptive parents can this happen.
Under this early permanence scheme, adopting the child is never 100% guaranteed. In a very small number of cases, the court might make the decision that it is right for the child to return to parents or wider family members.
You can find out more about the Welsh Early Permanence scheme here.
Adopting then fostering
Some adopters decide to foster many years after they have adopted. They want to give something back, knowing the difference that foster carers made to their child before they were adopted.
Having been through the adoption process, they will have a lot of knowledge and experience to offer.
They will have demonstrated that they have the attributes required of a foster carer – patience, empathy, resilience, understanding, commitment, good communication, and supportive.
Once again, being approved as an adopter isn’t the same as being approved as a foster carer, so you will have to go through the approval process to foster. However, your adoption assessment can be used to provide information for certain parts of the fostering assessment.
Before you embark on the fostering journey, it’s important that your adoptive child/ren are fully on board with it and that you are prepared should the fostering assessment stir up anything about their past experiences.
Adopting and continuing to foster
Some foster carers might continue to foster after they have adopted a child. They might have adopted a baby or toddler but still provide respite, short or long-term foster carer to other children.
If you continue to foster after you have adopted a child, you might experience some difficult questions from children in your care around why you’re not adopting them. Depending on the child’s legal status, adoption might not even be an option anyway but nevertheless, it will require some careful explaining to the child so they are not left feeling different, insecure and left out.
Special Guardianship Order
Having children placing with you under a special guardianship order is neither fostering nor adopting.
A Special Guardianship Order (SGO) is a court order that places a child in the long-term care of someone other than their parents, while still maintaining the child’s legal ties to their birth family.
It grants the special guardian parental responsibility for the child until they turn 18, meaning they can make decisions about the child’s upbringing, such as where they live, which school they attend, and medical treatment.
Unlike adoption, a SGO does not sever the child’s relationship with their birth parent/s. There may still be occasions where the birth family’s permission is needed i.e. for change of surname.
A child under a Special Guardianship Order is no longer considered a looked-after child and therefore the involvement of social workers reduces. However, support can still be provided by the local authority.
Foster carers can apply for a Special Guardianship Order on a child or young person when they have lived with them for at least 12 months.
When a child is under a Special Guardianship Order, it can provide a child with a deeper sense of stability and permanence.
foster v adopt – final thought
If you want someone to call you ‘mum or ‘dad’ and if you want to be able to call a child ‘yours’ forever, then adoption is right for you.
If you’ve got something to offer multiple children over a period of time and would like to give them the building blocks to a brighter future, then fostering is probably more suited for you.
Whether you decide to foster or adopt, you will still be providing a caring and loving home for one child or several.
Ultimately, choosing between fostering and adoption depends on your individual circumstances and goals. Both options give children and young people the opportunity to benefit from stability and support in a loving home. Both have their own unique challenges and benefits, so you should carefully consider your own situation before making a decision.
To find out more about adoption in Swansea, contact Western Bay Adoption Service.
To find out more about fostering in Swansea, contact Foster Wales Swansea.
