Our experience with Nugent

We at first approached our Local Authority to start the process. However, as we are a mixed-race couple they advised us that the process would be futile, as there had never been any children that would match our ethnicity. We were not directed to any other agencies or given any information about other places we could get support. We were determined that this would not be the end of our journey, so we joined Adoption UK in the hope of finding more information. We discovered there were many mixed-race children finding it difficult to find their forever families. We then saw the details of Nugent Adoption and, from our first phone call, the feedback was positive.

On meeting our Social Worker we realised that Nugent Adoption looks nationally for children and do not have children at their agency. This sounded perfect for us as we knew locally we would probably not find a match. It was a huge relief that someone would proactively look for a child to match us.

One of our biggest concerns was how our daughter (then aged 7) would take to a new sibling. We did not let her know of our decision to adopt until we were at the later stages. We found ‘dripfeeding’ little conversations about having a sibling and letting her discuss her anxieties as they came, helped her come to terms with the idea. We always told her she would be involved and could always have a say in who we adopted. Our Social Worker then met with her and thankfully she also felt that our daughter overall felt positive about gaining a sibling.

The whole adoption process was very quick and with our Social Worker meeting us at flexible times both at home and work, it did not seem taxing at all. The day of our approval was nervewracking but luckily it was over within minutes, we were told the same day we had been approved.

Once we were approved we were able to join LinkMaker and actively look for a child. For us this felt great as up until now we felt very passive in the adoptive process. After a few weeks, our Social Worker rang us about a baby on the site and we were able to put in an expression of interest for him. From the initial contact to bringing our baby home was only a matter of weeks. We had been approached to Foster to Adopt our baby, which sped up the process immensely.

Our daughter was present during many of the phone calls we had over adopting our baby and she was very excited about meeting him. We had spoken to her about the mixed feelings she may have and that it would be ok to not always feel happy about having a new brother. Nugent Adoption organised sessions with a Social Worker for our daughter as we wanted her to have an independent person she could discuss her feelings openly with. Our daughter loved having her ‘own’ Social Worker and they had great fun sessions together.

Almost one year on we can’t imagine life without our little boy. Our children have bonded better than we could ever have hoped. From day one, our experience with Nugent has been nothing but positive and we cannot thank them enough for helping us complete our family.

Ayesha and John