Nimmy March – transcript
My name is Nimmy March and I know that there are plenty of people out there who would love to adopt a child but don’t perhaps even go about trying to find out about it because of the amount of myths there are surrounding what is required of you as a potential parent. So what follows is a myth-busting session.
Right, what you do not have to be:
- a home owner,
- you do not have to be working,
- or under 40,
- you don’t have to be married or in a relationship and
- you don’t have to be heterosexual,
- you don’t even have to be a parent or indeed specially qualified to adopt children. If there is such a thing as being specially qualified to adopt a child, I think the special qualification is the desire to do it (and the love…) to do it.
What you do have to be in order to adopt is:
- over 21,
- happy to make that space in your life and in your home for a child,
- patient, flexible and energetic and of course determined to make a real difference to a child’s life for a whole lifetime and if you are listening to this and you are thinking about adopting, the likelihood is that you fit every single criterion that is being thrown out there. (ie that criterion singular, those criteria plural).
So please do it, please do it. There are loads of children, I’m sure out there who’d be willing to come to you for sure. Also I think another really important thing to note is that there are people who have what we call disabilities or different abilities who perhaps don’t think it is possible for them to adopt and in certain circumstances it is most definitely possible for disabled people to adopt so please don’t let that put you off either.
There are of course children out there who are waiting to be adopted and among those who tend to wait longer to be adopted are older children, disabled children or children with different abilities as I like to call them, perhaps children who face challenges like Down’s Syndrome, cerebal palsy, foetal alcohol syndrome. Then of course there are sibling groups and a sibling group could be two, three or more children, brothers and sisters who need a placement in a family preferably together which is a big thing but a marvellous thing to take on.
In all of this I feel it is important to point out that people who are adopting children aren’t just going to be left to get on with it, that where people are asked and feel that they want the support, there is support available. Particularly of course with families who may take on a whole family of two, three or five children would definitely get a great deal of support so they won’t be left on their own.
I feel very excited about National Adoption Week and I feel that it is a great time for us to focus on really encouraging people from Black and Asian families, from families of all sorts to come forward and really give more thought to the idea of adopting and I’m confident that there are many more people out there who would like to adopt and just need a bit of extra oomph a bit of extra support and perhaps a bit of extra understanding of what it is to adopt and what they have to go through, so I really hope that we have a great week of rallying forth and getting some more support for these marvellous children out there who could do with new homes.
And for those who are unsure of what an adoptive family is, an adoptive family can be a single person who creates a family by adopting a child, a single parent, someone who is over 40, a gay or lesbian single person, a gay or lesbian couple and many more besides. There are many different types of family that is an adoptive family.