Paperwork for adoption — what's involved

The checks

These are the statutory checks. Every adoption agency in England has to carry them out — what differs between agencies is what they do alongside.

• Enhanced DBS check — for you and everyone in your household over 18. "Enhanced" and "child workforce" are the relevant categories. If you already hold a current enhanced DBS check at child-workforce level — for example because you're a teacher or a healthcare worker — we can usually use that one rather than apply for a new one. The DBS process includes an ID check where we confirm your identity from your passport, driving licence, and proof of address.
• Adoption medical — You and your GP complete an adoption medical form, which goes to our medical adviser. The medical adviser writes a short summary about your health that becomes part of your assessment. If anything is complex they may come back with follow-up questions, but as a rule we try not to exclude people from adopting because of health issues.
• References — three personal referees per adopter, so six in total for couples. One of the three can be a relative. We'll write to your referees with an online reference form, and we'll usually have a phone or video call with some or all of them.
• Local authority check — your council confirms whether they hold any information relevant to your assessment.
• Former-partner reference — if you have lived with a former partner and had children there together, we'll ask that ex-partner for a reference too. That's about safeguarding, not about your past relationship. We don't insist on contacting former partners you didn't share a household and children with. Other agencies sometimes do; we don't think it's necessary, and the regulations don't require it. There's a fuller answer to this on our FAQ.
• If you've lived abroad — if you've lived outside the UK as an adult for an extended period, we may ask for the equivalent of a DBS check from that country. Some countries make this fairly straightforward, others much less so, and we'll discuss what's reasonable in your case. Holidays don't count, even long ones.

What you tell us about yourself

This is the bigger part of Stage 1, and it's the part most people don't realise is coming. We're trying to build a clear picture of who you are, where you've come from, and how a child would fit into your life. None of it is a test.

The basics. Identity, address, household, and a recent photograph of you for our records.

Your home. A room-by-room description of your home, where children would sleep and play, anything that would be out of bounds, and where pets sleep. It doubles as a useful checklist when you're getting your home ready for a child.

Your finances. A short summary of your income and outgoings. We need to satisfy ourselves that you can support a child financially, but the bar is not high — nobody has been turned down by Jigsaw for being on a modest income.

Your life so far. A written chronology of the main events and stages of your life — where you grew up, where you studied, jobs, relationships, the moments that shaped you. The regulations require this as part of your prospective adopter's report; we ask you to draft it because you'll do a better job of it than anyone else. There's a template in the app to help.

Your family tree. A simple family tree going back one generation, showing parents, siblings, and other close relatives. It helps us understand your family circumstances and the people in your wider life.

Your support map. A diagram of the people and organisations who'll be there for you and your family — close friends, relatives, neighbours, community or faith groups, anyone who'd genuinely show up. It doesn't need to be elaborate; a sketch is fine.

Your support network. Separately from your referees, we ask you to identify around six people or families who'll provide practical and emotional support once children are placed with you. They can be the same people as your referees, but they don't have to be — a friendly neighbour might be an excellent supporter without having known you long enough to give a reference. We'll write to your nominated supporters and ask what kind of support they'd be able to offer.

Your self-assessment. This is the longest piece of writing we ask for. Questions about your own upbringing, your views on parenting, your hopes and worries about adoption. It's designed to give us — and you — a clear picture of where you're starting from. In our experience, it's the most useful preparation for Stage 2.

Your learning. Books, podcasts, our therapeutic-parenting course, volunteering with vulnerable children. You log what you've done as you go, with a few sentences on what you took from it.

We're not looking for the right answers, and there are no trick questions. The point of all this is for us to know you well enough to be useful to you — at assessment, at panel, and afterwards.

If you'd like to start this process, fill in our interest form and we'll be in touch to talk it through.

Documents we'll ask you to upload

Alongside the forms, we'll need:

• Passports for everyone in your household over 18
• Driving licences (where applicable)
• One or two proofs of address per adult — utility bills, council tax, bank or building society statements
• Your marriage or civil partnership certificate, if applicable
• A divorce decree or dissolution certificate, if applicable
• A letter from your employer, if you work or have ever worked with children or vulnerable adults
• Your employer's policy for adoption leave, if applicable

Scanned copies are fine for our records, though we'll want to see your original passport at some point during the process.

All of this lives in one place

Stage 1 information-gathering happens in the Jigsaw adopter app — an online portal we've built specifically for adoption. You log in whenever it suits you, with the same email you used on the interest form, and fill in forms, upload documents, and track what's still outstanding. It's available 24/7, and your information is encrypted and held securely on our systems.

You can pause halfway through a form, save what you've done, and come back the next day. You can see at a glance what's complete and what's still to do. Your partner can work on their own forms in their own time, on their own device. We can see what you've added when you've added it, and we can help if anything is unclear.

Most of this happens in a less structured way for adopters with other agencies — by exchanging Word documents and PDFs over email — but we think a single online portal is a clearer, more secure way to work through Stage 1 together.

The prospective adopter's report

The prospective adopter's report — usually called the PAR — is an important document and a crucial step on the journey to be approved as an adopter. Your social worker prepares it during Stage 2, drawing on everything you've shared, the checks, the references, and a series of conversations with you at home. It goes to the adoption panel along with the panel's other paperwork, and the panel makes a recommendation to the agency based on it.

You see your PAR before it goes to panel and you have the chance to comment on anything you'd like to add, or push back on. It's a substantial document — typically 40 to 60 pages — and it's written collaboratively rather than handed down.

After approval

After you're approved as adopters and matched with a child, there's a smaller amount of further paperwork. The two main pieces are the placement plan, which sets out the practical arrangements for the child moving in — contact, support, parental responsibility, reviews — and the adoption order, which is the court order that legally makes the child yours. You can apply for the adoption order any time from ten weeks after the child has been placed with you; many families take a little longer.

We cover both in more detail on the adoption process page.