Adoption myths
There is a lot of received wisdom about UK adoption — some from online forums, some from news coverage, and some, frustratingly, from other adoption agencies. Quite often the misunderstanding is about how rules and regulations should be applied, rather than what they actually say.
If you’re looking for answers to “can I adopt if…” questions, the FAQ is probably the better place to start.
What’s on this page
Myths about money — three myths
Myths about who we contact — two myths
Myths about your existing life — two myths
Myths about voluntary agencies — one myth
Myths about money
Three common concerns people have about their ability to adopt are about money. None of them have any basis in adoption regulations — they are rules some local authorities have come up with on their own.
“You need a certain amount of savings in the bank to adopt”
There is no minimum savings requirement in adoption regulation. None.
Some local authorities have introduced thresholds of their own — typically, savings equivalent to several months of household expenditure — but these are local inventions, not statutory requirements. At Jigsaw, we ask about your finances because we want to understand your situation, not because we are looking for a number to compare against a threshold. We treat adopters as adults who can budget for their own household. Affluence is not a prerequisite for adopting.
“You have to own your home to adopt”
You don’t. There is no requirement in adoption regulation to be a homeowner.
What we look for is housing stability — that the child will arrive in a settled home and isn’t going to be moved around. A long-term tenancy is fine. Jigsaw has placed children with families who are renting and families who own; both work.
More about housing and preparing for adoption →
“You need a salaried job to adopt”
You don’t. There is nothing in adoption regulation that requires a salaried employment contract. Self-employed adopters, contractors, and people with irregular working patterns are all welcome.
We are aware that some local authorities ask for payslips as part of their checks, which has the effect of shutting out anyone whose income doesn’t show up that way. There is no basis for this in regulation. At Jigsaw we treat employed and self-employed adopters on the same terms.
Myths about who we contact
Two myths about the checks an agency makes — what we ask, who we speak to, and what we’re asking them about.
“We have to speak to all your ex-partners”
We don’t.
The actual rule is at Regulation 26(d) of the Adoption Agencies Regulations 2005 (as amended). It says that the agency must, “where the adoption agency considers it necessary, obtain a personal reference from the prospective adopter’s former spouse, civil partner or partner”. The phrase that matters is “where the adoption agency considers it necessary”. The regulation doesn’t require us to contact everyone you have ever dated.
In practice, Jigsaw will normally want to speak to a former partner if you lived in the same household together with children — yours, theirs, or both. Where there were no children involved, or you didn’t share a household, we generally don’t need to make contact at all.
When we do speak to an ex, our concern is safeguarding only: were there any concerns about how children in that household were treated. We are not asking your ex whether you would be a good adoptive parent, and we are not asking them whether they liked you.
“Your employer has to give a reference”
No, they don’t. There is no regulatory requirement for an employer reference.
Jigsaw tends to ask for a brief reference from your employer if you work or worked with children — for example as a teacher, nursery worker, or paediatric nurse. When we do, the reference is about safeguarding only. We are not asking your employer whether they think you’ll make a good parent.
Many adopters are nervous about telling their employer at all, often imagining the employer will be unhappy at the prospect of adoption leave. In our experience, adopters have consistently found their employers to be supportive. We have not had a single case where an employer created difficulties for one of our families.
Myths about your existing life
Two myths about how adoption fits into life as you are already living it — work, and family size.
“You can’t work after adopting”
You can. There is no regulatory requirement that an adopter must give up work or become a stay-at-home parent.
What is reasonable to expect is enough time off when the children arrive. Most adopters take initial adoption leave together as a couple, and then one partner usually stays at home until the children are properly settled. After that, returning to work — full-time or part-time — is a normal part of family life. Many of our adopters do.
“You can come back for a second child as long as there is a two-year age gap”
This is the single most damaging piece of misinformation in UK adoption. It is also very widely repeated.
The reality is that local authorities, in practice, will not place a second adopted child in a household where there is already a child younger than around 10 or 11. The two-year-gap rule simply isn’t how it works. If a family wants more than one child through adoption, the realistic route is to adopt a sibling group together — not to adopt one child and come back later.
This matters because the timing has real consequences. If you adopt a three-year-old at the age of 38, you’ll be nearly 50 before another local authority would consider placing another child with you, and by that point many adopters are no longer assessed as suitable for a young child.
Myths about voluntary agencies
One persistent myth about how voluntary adoption agencies fit into UK adoption.
“Voluntary agencies only get the children that local authority adopters don’t want”
This isn’t how matching works. There are two reasons children come to a voluntary adoption agency rather than being placed by their own local authority.
The first is that children sometimes need to be placed outside their home county — for instance, because the birth family is local and would pose a risk to the child. In those cases, the local authority actively wants the child placed outside the area where their own adopters are based.
The second is geographic mismatch. Across England, there are more adopters than children in Greater London and the Thames Valley, and more children than adopters in the north. Local authorities in the south, in theory, should be recruiting adopters and matching them to children placed for adoption by local authorities in the north. In practice, this doesn’t happen at any scale. But it happens with Jigsaw — we work with adopters across Greater London and the Thames Valley and place them with children from local authorities all over England and Wales.
In other words: children are referred to voluntary agencies because of how the system actually works, not because they have been passed over.
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