Vulnerable children could find new adoptive families faster, thanks to an improved system for matching prospective parents with youngsters from across Scotland.
The website for Scotland's Adoption Register, will allow adults who are interested in adopting to get involved earlier and find out more about what they have to offer.
The four year old register s run by the British Association for Adoption & Fostering (BAAF) Scotland on behalf of the Scottish Government. It aims to make it easier to match children in care with loving permanent families.
It passed the milestone of 150 matches in January, and BAAF hopes that by sharing information more effectively the website will continue to find better, quicker matches between children and their new parents, helping children who need adoptive families to find them sooner.
Robin Duncan, Scotland's Adoption Register Manager said matches for adoption tend to be more successfuul the earlier adopters can be involved in the matching process.
"There are frustrations about how long the adoption process can take and of how difficult it can be to find families for all the children who need them," he said. "We want the site to be as effective and as slick as possible. Engaging adopters at the earliest stage possible really helps in terms of speed in placing children."
The new website is more accessible and interactive and will link with social media, for those who want to share their progress.
The register currently holds regular adoption exchange days where prospective parents can look at films and photographs of children needing homes, read profiles and even view their toys and drawings.
At present that will not be a feature of the website, but the potential for such developments is likely to be explored, if privacy concerns can be addressed.
Fiona McLeod, Acting Minister for Children, said an increased number of referrals and increased confirmed matches were welcome.
"These improvements to the new website reflect the growing success Scotland's Adoption Register has had in finding secure, stable and loving homes for some of Scotland's most vulnerable children," she said.
"The website will arm prospective parents with the information and advice they need to go forward. It is also a great practical resource for social workers who are key in helping to make placements between children who are suitable for adoption and prospective adopters in Scotland.
"When you are dealing with something as deeply personal and life-changing, it is so vitally important to have the necessary information available and in a format as straight forward as possible. This website will enable this to happen as well as assist social workers to provide all the necessary support required."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article