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The Isle of Wight Adoption Service aims to provide a service for all those who live on the Isle of Wight and for whom adoption has been or will be part of their life.

If you would like to talk about adopting a child and you live on the Isle of Wight, contact the Adoption Service on 566011 or write to us at Social Services Centre (Ryde), Town Hall, Lind Street, Ryde.

We recruit, assess, train and support adoptive families who live on the Isle of Wight. You can be single, with a partner and with or without children. You need the commitment to help a child who may have had difficult early life experiences and who will need your support and understanding throughout their childhood and into adulthood. Patience, tolerance, a sense of humour, time energy and space are all qualities that you will need.

There are many reason why children cannot stay with their birth parents and some have very complex family backgrounds which may include drug and alcohol abuse, mental ill health, physical and sexual abuse and domestic violence.

When there is no possibility of children returning to their birth families, we need to make their lives as secure as possible and this is often achieved through adoption. This means that they become children of the adopters as if they had been born to them although they may still retain some contact with their birth family.

On the Island we work with the South Coast Adoption Consortium which is a collection of authorities on the South Coast who share their resources. This means that children from the Island are usually placed with families on the mainland and the other authorities place their children with our families. Within the Consortium we have a particular need for families who can adopt children over the age of 3, brothers and sisters who need to stay together, children with a disability and children of minority ethnic groups who need families that can meet their racial, ethnic and cultural needs.

We offer the same service to people who live on the Isle of Wight and want to consider adopting from overseas. Assessment to become an approved adopter for adopting a child from overseas largely follows the same process as that for people pursuing a domestic adoption. The current charge to be assessed as an overseas adopter is £3,500.

If you are adopted or are a birth parent, we also offer you a range of services. All people adopted before 12 November 1975 are required to attend an interview with a counsellor before being given information which will lead them to their original birth certificate.

People adopted after that date, but who are over 18, have the option of counselling but will need to see someone if they wish to have access to their records. We would only supply information to adopted people under the age of 18 in consultation with their adoptive parent. If you want to know more about these services, ring the Adoption Service on 566011.

If you are a birth parent and your child who has been adopted is over 18, we will consider requests to try to establish contact with the young person. Again, if you want to know more about this service, ring the Adoption Service on 566011. We also provide a time limited independent counselling service for birth parents when adoption is the plan for their child whether or not they are in agreement with the plan.

Under the Adoption Support Services Regulations (2003), the Isle of Wight provides a range of adoption support services to all parties involved in adoption.

If you are an adoptive parent, a child within ad adoptive family whether an adopted or birth child, a birth parent of an adopted child or someone with whom the child has continuing contact, you are entitled to request that an assessment of your need for adoption support services is undertaken. If you want to discuss this further, ring the Adoption Service on 566011.