Voluntary Adoption Agencies are partly funded by donations and fund raising alongside fees which we receive from Local Authorities when we provide adoptive families for children who are looked after by them.
No doubt there is pressure to obtain those fees from local authorities. Recently one of the voluntary adoption agencies, Adoptionplus, has made the headlines because of their decision to advertise two boys in a local newspaper: The Telegraph has this to say:
An adoption agency desperately trying to find parents has resorted to the unusual tactic of advertising children in local newspapers. Independent agency Adoptionplus has placed full page adverts with pictures of real children who are looking for a new home.
The advert asks for "loving parents" for adorable Liam, aged four, and three-year-old Kevin. It reads: "You don't have to have had children; you don't need to be in a relationship; you don't need to be heterosexual; you don't need to be young and you don't need to be perfect. "You just need to really want to make a difference in a child's life."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/children_shealth/10505544/Adoption-agency-advertises-children-in-local-newspapers.html
The decision by Actionplus to advertise the children has been heavily criticised by campaigners including John Hemmings MP who said that the advert sent out the wrong message and would not serve the purpose of finding a safe home for vulnerable children. We are reminded that if parents, fighting to have their children returned to them, did something like that they would be sent to prison.
It was also pointed out that in these days of the Internet and social networking it was not safe to advertise children because the anonymity of the children could not be guaranteed.
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