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Tel: 0113 388 5400
Fax: 0113 388 5401
Email: info@catholic-care.org.uk
Facts...
- Children thrive best in a loving family.
- We need families for children.
- Children with brothers and sisters need new families
- Children with special needs need new families
- Older children need new families
The search is on for people with a generous spirit who will open their hearts and their homes to children in need. We urgently need people to provide our children with loving, safe and caring homes.
"A wider pool of prospective adoptive parents would dramatically increase the chances of matching children to adoptive parents who can offer security, stability and above all love to children who most need this" says Mark Wiggin, Director of Catholic Care.
Catholic Care's Adoption Service would welcome a confidential enquiry from you if you think you have the commitment and desire to help bring up children, adoption could be for you. We would love to hear from you.
The primary objective of Catholic Care's Adoption Service is to provide loving stable families for children who are seeking adoption and to provide a Post Adoption Support service for those who have adopted or been adopted.
Catholic Care (Diocese of Leeds) operates most of its services within the Diocese. However, the Adoption Service operates throughout Yorkshire and Humberside as a result of agreement with the adjoining Dioceses of Hallam and Middlesbrough.
A tradition of family work
We are the longest established adoption agency in the area. The Catholic Church in Leeds has cared for children disadvantaged by separation from their birth parents since 1865. We have been directly involved in placing children for adoption since 1926 when the first Adoption Act made it legally possible to adopt children. Our adoption service emerged as a part of these early services and became regularised through state legislation and registration in 1943. Catholic Care (Diocese of Leeds) formalised its own governance directly as a result of Adoption legislation requirements. Catholic Care (Diocese of Leeds) has been a registered voluntary adoption agency since then.
The service
The placement of vulnerable children is an overriding feature of our work. The adoption service undertakes assessments of prospective adoptive married couples or single people. The assessment process is a vital tool in assessing an applicant's suitability to parent through adoption. The Adoption Team also support adopters as they strive to develop secure relationships with the children placed.
Post adoption support
As Adoption Orders are granted, adopters are reassured to know that the Agency is still available to offer support should this be required; support which promotes the stability of placements. This is an ongoing element of the role of social workers within the adoption service and the beneficiaries of this are the children in that they can enjoy the security that a supportive placement brings.
Family searches
The Post Adoption Services offered by the Agency have increased considerably in light of the new legislation. We are currently working with a number of adopted adults, as they embark upon a search of their origins, and birth families as they attempt to trace siblings separated through adoption or adopted adults relinquished at birth.
Track record
Catholic Care has a good track record of finding, assessing and preparing adults for their role as adoptive parents. As a Catholic agency we are proud to be associated with Catholic adoption work which has a reputation for finding parents for the most damaged and vulnerable children, including children with behavioural and other disabilities and members of significant sibling groups. Our track record mirrors the national Catholic contribution to adoption with a low family breakdown rate of approximately 3% compared to a nation average of nearly 30%. (Statistics from stage 1 BAAF report to Government 2007).
Quality assurance
The Agency is registered to carry out adoption work and is inspected by Ofsted against criteria reflected in ‘Every Child Matters'. Catholic Care is recognised by Investors in People and we are members of key national adoption agencies that promote best practice.
Contact:
Vera Ogden: Adoption Team Leader
Tel: 0113 3885 400
Email: vera.ogden@catholic-care.org.uk
Catholic Care acts to support those in need of its services, especiallly the weak and the vunerable and it acts as an advocate for those unable to represent themselves
The primary purpose of the agency is to foster and influence a vision of how people can live together in Christian charity, love and justice, by taking the "Caring Church into the Community
