adoption waiting lists

carriebyrne

HI ALL
Am amazed and angered with the three year waiting list to get on information course and then three more years of assessment, invasion and HSE ineptness before you can get your take home adopted child. What kind of lunacy is this?
Lets not tolerate this 6 years of agonising waiting. No other EU country puts you through this hassle. I suggest a campaign- media coverage, lobbying HSE and TDs, petitions, marches,,,,, whatever it takes to make the HSE find additional resources and take us seriously. All suggestions welcome.Anyone want to join in? Lets do it!

kathy finn

hi,
it,s the same for adopted people trying to find birthparents, i was on a waiting list for 5 years just to meet with a social worker.
i feel that just because you have applied to adopt a child, it does,nt give you the right to be parents, over the years i have heard some horror stories about adoptive parents and sometimes for one reason or another it has,nt worked out. my adopted parents where good people, i just think they did,nt know how to raise an adopted child......kathy

MaryMagdalene

It's also the same for natural parents trying to trace their children - many who were forced to sign them away and many who never even did sign them away they were stolen albeit it legally by the state!

Try waiting for over 40 yrs to trace your own flesh and blood who was stolen at birth - I know of at least two and they are certainly not getting any preferential treatment!!

Given all the horror stories I have heard from natural parents and adoptees waiting 6 years with updates along the way and a clear sense of the steps you have to take and a practacially guaranteed result at the end I'm afraid I would consider you at the lucky side in this sad and sorry saga.

I apologise if I sound harsh but it's how I feel.

Sesheta

Firstly the vast majority of people applying to adopt a child do so because they feel they have a lot to offer a child and are unable to have children of their own. Because of the prejudices against adoption in this country, for a variety of reasons, domestic adoption has all but died out and the only option is to go for intercountry adoption, which by the way adds whatever waiting list the country you are applying to has.

The problem here is that the HSE and, by extension, the Government do not supply sufficient numbers of social workers to deal with either people applying to adopt or those dealing with adoption in the past. There have been no extra social workers adopted in Dublin in the last ten years.

Surely, rather than sniping at people whose situation you do not know, it would be more productive if all sides worked together to lobby the appointment of more social workers which would help all of us.

MaryMagdalene

Sesheta - point taken, however the OP did not appear to consider these viewpoints and hence some of us felt we had the right to point it out.

I can't help but feel sad as once again when adoptees and natural parents express their opinion (which is not positive) we are made to feel like we are ...... snipping.

Yes you are right the prejudices against adoption in Ireland surely do still exist................ if you are on the wrong side.