Can you adopt?
As National Adoption Week starts on Monday 31st October, Southend-on-Sea Borough Council is urging more potential adoptive parents to come forward.
Already, the Council has a successful record of adoptions, with 23 adoption orders completed within the last seven months.
However, there are currently six children waiting for families of their own.
Southend-on-Sea Borough Council’s Executive Councillor for Children and Learning, Councillor Mark Flewitt said: “The children we find it harder to place are those who are four years old, or older, and those to be placed together with brothers and/or sisters.
“We have approved parents ready and waiting to adopt very little children, but we really need to give a chance of a family life to these slightly older children who may have had a very difficult start in life.
“Due to the issues they have grown up with so far, they may start out with a very low self-esteem, so they need positive and consistent parenting.
“It takes them time to respond to love, so we are very keen to find adoptive parents who will stick with them. When their lives start to turn round, it is immensely rewarding.
“We are looking for adoptive parents from a very wide range of backgrounds and situations.”
The Council works in an adoption consortium with Thurrock and Havering, and the three boroughs are jointly holding an adoption open evening on Wednesday 2nd November at 6.30pm at the Orsett Hall Hotel, Prince Charles Avenue, Orsett, RM16 3HS.
Anyone who would like to find out more about adoption is warmly invited to attend this meeting, or visit: www.partners-in-adoption.co.uk, email: fostering@southend.gov.uk or call 01702 354366.
