Only five per cent of registered children are adopted

Just five per cent of the children put forward for possible
adoption by the national adoption register ended up being
successfully adopted, its first annual report has revealed,
writes Derren Hayes.

The long-awaited report shows that while 600 children and
prospective parents were linked together through the register in
its first full year of operation, only 30 progressed through to
adoption.

Since the register, which is run by Jewish charity Norwood for
the department of health and Welsh Assembly, was set up in
September 2001 with £633,000 of government funding, it has
been criticised for not making enough matches.

The register currently has 2,300 children who have been
identified as appropriate for adoption, and 2,200 prospective
adopters placed on it. All local authority adoption agencies feed
details of children and adopters into the register after six
months.

Ruth Fasht, Norwood’s director, called its first 20 months
– it had an eight month setting-up period –
“successful” saying its role is to make links with
agencies having the responsibility to turn those into matches.