How do I go about adopting children in Australia?

Serenity71

It depends on if your looking to adopt a child locally or through inter-country.

These days there are more options than just adoption like had been thirty to forty years ago when adoption reached its peak and people began to see changes needed to be made. If you're just starting out I would advise you to look into these options before you chose straight adoption.

Local adoption requires you to pay for only your legal costs and assessments. This varies so I can't give you an exact figure. What they want to know in financial area is that you can support a child to adult years. That means you don't have to own your home, but you can pay your bills and the house is suitable for a child. (Stability.)

I'm not going to tell you the adoption process is easy. For a start you have to put in your initial application form. This is just an expression of interest, and DOCS decides if your suitable to go onto the next stage.
(They then invite you, just wanting to adopt a child isn't enough to get you past the first the stage. We were invited to attend a seminar eight months after we sent in the first application. ) Which is full two- three day seminar that goes over all aspects of adoption. I can be confronting and I heard some people as we left ours say adoption wasn't for them. (As I said, confronting and real, DOCS don't hold back on the good and the bad that come from adoption. Real people come in and tell their experiences. And not all of them were good.) I've been through the local adoption process several times.

Adoption in Australia is about finding homes for children that need them. Its more like a service within the community, so please don't confuse it with what you see on TV in shows from the US. Adoption is only one of the options but I find its the last option that DOCS will pursue. I could keep going but I feel I couldn't tell you enough in a few paragraphs about the way local adoption works. And it varies a little bit from state to state.

I've attached a website that will give you some information to start with. I think its best to call Adoptions and permanent care services in your state to get up to date details.

Just note there are NO guarantee's of being placed with a child, just because you make it to the adoption pool in either inter-country or local adoption (And you can't be in both, its one or the other,) doesn't mean you'll be automatically placed with a child. If you have what it takes to be an adoptive parent, that won't put you off applying.

All the best!

http://www.australiansadopt.org/AdoptionProcess.php

http://www.community.nsw.gov.au/parents_carers_and_families/fostering_and_adoption/adoption/want_to_adopt/local_adoption.html

P.S If you had to be 'perfect' how did i get through... LOL not perfect, but genuine and no criminal records maybe..

Sam

Australia is not a very poor country and therefore doesn't place many children outside of their country. Your best bet it is adopt from a country that really needs to where the children really need it. Most children are in foster care in australia. not many are adopted out to other countries.

cmr

I heard from some people that were looking into it that there isn't really children available for adoption in Australia. I think the statisitc was something like 7 children adopted within Australia in 2007....something like that. They're mostly fostered long term. Your best bet is to look at overseas adoption.

charlie_gurl

it depends if you want to adopt from australia or overseas, but it takes about 10 years when you live in australia to adopt, and it is a long hard slog to convince them that you and your husband are good enough and i think they would want you to own your own home, basically you have to be perfect, im not exactly sure about the cost but i know it is a lot

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