Adoption Focus CEO Anna Sharkey reflects on another busy year for our charity.
2025 has had its challenges for everybody, including for the adoption sector. A situation has been developing nationwide where more and more children are in need of adoptive families, while fewer potential adopters have been putting themselves forward to start the process. This means that children are waiting longer than ever to be placed in loving, permanent homes.
'The Long Wait'
This growing crisis was the motivation for our film 'The Long Wait'. This impactful short video highlights the issue from the children's perspective, using special effects to show a selection of children ageing as time passes.
We took the film out into communities using video screens in railway stations and digivans in city centres leading to a busy programme of media interviews, to raise awareness of the urgent need for new adopters.
Information Events
Happily, The Long Wait’, and our other adopter recruitment activities have resulted in a huge increase in attendance at our regular adoption information events. During 2025, more than 250 people have joined us for our weekly online events, and the in-person events we’ve run at various venues in our central England catchment area, including in Birmingham, Stoke-on-Trent, Nottingham, Leicestershire, and Oxfordshire. We’ve also continued to provide one-to-one meetings for people who have struggled to make our scheduled events. We’re committed to being as flexible as possible to make it easier for potential adopters to get the information they need and begin their journeys with us.
Supporting our Families
Our dedicated adoption support team has continued to offer outstanding support to families and children of all ages and at all stages. This has included one-to-one sessions, therapeutic life story work, support on education issues, training for schools and advocating for Education Health Care Plans. Alongside this, the team delivered a packed training calendar including friends and family workshops, our SafeBase parenting programme, transitions to adulthood training, and supported groups on our unique Adopterverse platform.
This year, we’ve also hosted a creative writing workshop for adopted teenagers and partnered with our friends at BookTrust to launch Story Explorers, to encourage shared reading between parents and children. We’ve held social events including two parties for our families, and days out to Cotswold Wildlife Park, the National Space Centre, Think Tank, and Peak Wildlife Park, with the help of generous funding from Star Trust, Love Brum, and Daniel’s Legacy.
We’re proud of the the support we provide, nurturing our adopters and children’s journeys from training, to introductions, to helping children to settle and being there whenever we’re needed.
Adoption Focus Outreach and Pride
As part of our continuing drive to promote adoption and engage with potential adopters, our team has spent more time than ever this year on community outreach. This has included a presence at the vibrant Nottingham Carnival, connecting with people in local Asda stores, and reaching out to church communities across the Midlands.
We’ve also been delighted to take part in a number of Pride celebrations in the region. A team from Adoption Focus joined the Birmingham Pride parade in May. We had a stall at Nottingham Pride in July, one at Coventry Pride in August, and we joined with hundreds of other people to take part in the inaugural Solihull Pride in September. It was an absolute pleasure to take part in each of these wonderful occasions, and we’re very much looking forward to being involved in these uplifting events again next year.
A Huge Thank You to Our Supporters
Once again, it’s been a busy year for our supporters. We’re so grateful to all the people who have taken part in our challenge events, including runners in the Paris and Amsterdam marathons, who raised more than £2000 for us with their incredible efforts. Fundraising efforts like these are vital in helping us to continue to support adoptive families through the years as children grow into adulthood.
The 200 Club has had a successful first year, and still has space for additional players for the chance to win cash prizes each month. We recently mailed a letter to over 2,000 supporters to ask if they would donate regularly and consider leaving us a gift in their Will. Plus, we launched an amazing Prize Draw in November, offering the opportunity to win a Range Rover Sport and other prizes. A big thank you also to everyone who provided prizes for our popular raffles held at our bi-annual family parties. Donations enable us to provide the right type of support at the right time, to help children reach their full potential. They also help us to pay for the fun things which families enjoy doing together and with other adoptive families – opportunities for children to play together, and for adults to socialise and relax whilst sharing parenting tips and friendly support.
Finally, we are very grateful once again to the Alex Timpson Trust & Timpson Foundation for their continued generous support of our Safebase parenting programme, to enable us to increase the reach of this programme significantly.
Talking Adoption through Our Podcasts
Our two podcast series Adoption in Focus and Education in Focus have gone from strength to strength in the last year. Adoption in Focus is a wonderful way for us to share adoption stories more widely, with guests including adults who were adopted as children, adopters from a range of backgrounds with a variety of experiences, grandparents of adopted children, and sector professionals. Meanwhile, in Education in Focus our team of education experts discuss different aspects of schools and education through the lens of adoption.
Between them, Adoption in Focus and Education in Focus have had more than 6,000 downloads across their combined 45 episodes. Both are available to listen to on your podcast app of choice, or to download via Buzzsprout. Thank you so much to everyone who has appeared on our podcasts to share their stories.
Secure Homes for Children
At Adoption Focus, everything we do is focused around improving the lives of children. During 2025 we have placed 43 vulnerable children with 35 loving, well-prepared new families. Adoption will always be at the core of the work we do, and we look forward to working with many new prospective adopters next year and providing more safe, permanent homes for children who’ve had a difficult start in life.
Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to our organisation’s continuing success story during the last 12 months – our staff, trustees, panel members, volunteers, podcast guests, supporters, buddies, colleagues from partner agencies and, most of all, our amazing adopters.
Wishing you a peaceful, merry Christmas and a very happy New Year.
