Agency warns of "concerning" drop in adoptive families across Midlands
More than 1500 children in England had been waiting 18 months or longer to be matched with an adoptive family
A Birmingham-based adoption agency is calling for more people to consider adopting, following a “concerning” decline in the number of available families.
It’s as new data’s reveals the number of approved adoptive families currently in England is fewer than half the number of children awaiting adoption.
Between April to December 2025, more than 3,000 children with a placement order in England were waiting to be matched with an adoptive family – half of whom had been waiting 18 months or longer since going into care.
Over the same period there were 1,350 approved adoptive families waiting to be matched with a child.
These figures compare to 2,080 children awaiting adoption at the end of December 2015, at a time when 3,250 adoptive families were awaiting a match.
Anna Sharkey is the CEO of Adoption Focus, which covers the Midlands, and says this data reflect central England too.
She explained what might be contributing to this, saying: “Some of it's to do with cost-of-living worries, some of it's to do with cost of housing. But I also think there are some people who put themselves off from thinking that they might be suitable to become adoptive parents. So, there's all sorts of barriers that people put into place that stops them even coming forward.
“We need safe secure, nurturing, caring, loving people who are going to pick the pieces up for those children and provide them with the family life that they need. What we think may be happening for some people is they've heard all the negative stuff about how difficult it is and things will just be hard and challenging.
“We want to break those barriers down to encourage people to speak to us, to stop worrying about all the things they think are going to stop them from being able to parent and let us talk to them about what that could actually look like.”
Research by children’s charity Coram suggested almost a quarter of people (23%) would be prepared to consider adopting.
A survey it commissioned, carried out by YouGov in January of 2,171 UK adults, found that 90% agreed adoption is a good option for children who need it, and half of people knew someone who has been adopted or has adopted a child.
Dame Carol Homden, chief executive of Coram, said: “Adoption remains a vital service for our most vulnerable children who have normally been removed from their family because they have experienced, or were likely to experience, significant harm there and need a lifelong, loving home as part of another family.”
Today (4th August) marks the centenary of legal adoption in England, with the passing of the Adoption of Children Act 1926 which introduced a legal process by which the rights and responsibilities for a child could be transferred from birth parents to adoptive parents.