The overwhelming majority of people who contact our agency and are thinking about adopting do so with the intention of adopting a child that is aged 0 to 2 years old. And understandably everyone has their reasons for this.

However, our latest figures show that 40% of our children that have a Placement Order are in fact 3 years old or older, and with this group of children waiting the longest for their forever families we have more need than ever for adopters to consider whether they could adopt an older child.

These are still very young children, and due to the nature of their births there will be some developmental delay, meaning that while these older children may present as older they are in fact still very young and need just as much love and attention.

But how do you officially class a child as older? At what age do YOU consider a child to be classed as old?

The team at Adoption Now hit the road at shopping centres in Bolton, Blackburn and Bury to challenge these preconceptions at our recent July Roadshows!

We took five life-sized, cardboard cut-outs, based on real children, were displayed and passers-by were asked how old they thought they were based on their height. The children ranged from ten months old to seven years old.

100% of the people asked were unable to guess all the children’s ages correctly with 23% guessing only one child’s age right. On average the children were thought to be between one and four years older than they actually were.

In this episode we will here how people across all 3 roadshows reacted to the answers!

If you are thinking about adopting and could now consider adopting a child over the age of 3 we would love to hear from you. You can visit our website which is www.adoptionnow.org.uk or you can call our Information Line on 01204 336096 where a member of the team will be able to answer ANY questions you may have about adoption and the adoption process.

And don’t forget, you can also book your free place at one our upcoming Online information events. 100% live and hosted by one of our social workers with an adopter guest speaker, these are the perfect place to start your adoption journey. You can book your free place by visiting www.adoptionnow.org.uk/events

...A birth parent's perspective