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The British Association for Adoption & Fostering (BAAF)

Placing children first

BAAF is one of the UK’s leading adoption and fostering charities that every year helps find forever families for some of the 4,000 children waiting for adoption.

BAAF aims to improve the lives for children in care by working with childcare professionals, parents and carers, experts in the field of looked after children’s health and welfare, and those in positions of influence. We do this by:

Finding permanent, loving and secure families for children separated from their birth parents;

Ensuring that children in care are listened to and respected, and that their needs are met;

Promoting and develop the highest standards in adoption, fostering and child placement services;

Increasing understanding of adoption, fostering, and the life-long needs of children separated from their birth families;

Influencing policy makers and legislators to elicit real change for children and young people.

BAAF’s activities include:

Be My Parent, a monthly newspaper and online service which carries pictures and a short profile of around 180 children waiting for permanent families. Many of these children are older (7+), in sibling groups, or may have a disability, and have waited over a year for a new family to be found. As a direct result of being featured in the paper, many thousands of children have been found new families over BAAF’s 30 year history.National Adoption Week – November 1st – 7th, an annual campaign held each November to raise awareness and recruit new families. We work with national media partners to gain significant coverage of the urgent need for more carers, and each year receive thousands of enquiries from prospective adoptive parents;Running fostering and adoption advice lines – answering calls from prospective carers, adult adoptees, adoptive and foster parents, childcare workers and the general public, on all aspects of adoption and fostering;Driving up standards through training and consultancy services for local authority adoption and fostering teams across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland;Campaigning and lobbying for changes in legislation to improve services for children in care and those who care for them;Producing an extensive range of publications for all those involved with adoption and fostering.

To find out more please visit www.baaf.org.uk