Our approach, values and DDP

Launched on 1 February 2018, ACE is the regional adoption agency for the local authority areas of Coventry, Herefordshire, Solihull, Warwickshire and Worcestershire. Our central purpose is finding the right families for children needing permanent homes through adoption. Our overarching aim is to provide a relationship-focussed service for children, adoptive families and others affected by adoption and to achieve this by offering lifelong support, based on up-to-date practices and interventions, and supported by modern technology.

We aim to recognise and value people’s differences and provide services that are welcoming and respectful. ACE welcomes enquiries about any aspect of adoption from all sections of the community.

An established service, ACE has successfully found homes for many children who need families. ACE approves on average 80 adoptive families a year and successfully places in the region of 100-120 children for adoption annually - some being brothers and sisters who need to stay together.

ACE is keen to recruit more families so that children do not have to wait for a family and the best possible ‘family match’ can be found.

We believe that there are many advantages to adopting through a regional adoption agency such as ACE. These are:

• We have first-hand information about the children who need families, gained through our close working relationships with the 5 local authority Children’s Services
• ACE embraces diversity and welcomes hearing from people from all sections of society who may be interested in adoption. Our aim is to treat all people who contact us with fairness and respect and we focus on the skills you have to care for children through out the process, while being clear with you about any areas where you may need further information, experience, or training. At the same time, we are committed to our own learning and development as a service.
• We are an established and experienced adoption service with a strong reputation – we have many adoptive parents who return to us to adopt again. Many of our applicants come to us through ‘word of mouth’

A few days ago, our adoption order was granted. We are over the moon and just so happy to have adopted the baby brother of our previously two adopted sons.

 I also wanted to thank you personally for backing our match. We are so proud of our newly adopted son, and it is thanks to your support that today we have a complete and happy family of five.

We are committed to fostering for adoption, an arrangement where children may live with their adoptive parents on a fostering basis in the first instance. This means that often children can live with their prospective adoptive parents from a very young age without having to move between families

Together we build strong families by promoting adoption as a positive outcome for children who cannot remain in their birth families. We do this by ensuring that prospective adoptive families are well informed, prepared and supported to appreciate and meet the current and potential longer term needs of children who they adopt. ACE offers long term support to adoptive families through ongoing training and access to specialist services such as the Therapeutic Team and Clinical Psychology Service. We also stay connected with you through our newsletter and opportunities to meet up with other adoptive families

We cannot fault the support and services that we received from ACE. We would highly recommend the team.

We appreciated the support and kindness the social worker and psychologist provided particularly around the issues of our child making contact with biological family.

ACE is the only DDP certified adoption service in the world! This means that we embrace the principles and practices of Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy - DDP brings together our understanding of attachment theory and developmental trauma that can have a profound effect on children’s emotional and behavioural development and their capacity to build warm and trusting relationships with their care givers. ACE works with adoptive families at all stages of the process to appreciate the impact of their child’s early trauma. This will help them to parent in ways that will enable their child to build trust, feel safe and reach their full potential.

ACE subscribes to two organisations who can advise and provide services to specific families interested in adoption. New Family Social is a charity which supports LGBT+ individuals interested in adoption and fostering, and Coram IAC is for those interested in adopting from overseas. ACE works in partnership with IAC who manage all enquiries that relate to intercountry adoption of any nature. IAC are also a charity and registered adoption agency with a long history of working in this specialist area. 

ACE services are delivered through the Hub and Spokes. The Hub teams recruit and assess people who wish to adopt, support them in the process of identifying the right child or children for them, and offer support for up to 12 months after the child or children are adopted.

The Spokes are aligned with the local authority areas and provide a range of ongoing support services to adoptive families as the need arises. This can be social work support or therapeutic services through the government’s Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund. ACE also has a Therapeutic Team who provide individual and group based interventions to help parents increase their understanding and empathy of the impact of their child’s early trauma and the need to build safe trusting long term relationships.

The ACE Clinical Psychology Service will meet with prospective adoptive parents and adoptive parents, alongside their ACE social worker to discuss any issues of concern where specialist advice is sought.

A comprehensive training programme is available to adoptive parents and adoptive parents are encouraged to subscribe to the quarterly newsletter for information about up and coming events.

We also offer Birth Records Counselling to adopted adults seeking access to their records and services to stepparent families, in addition to independent support to birth relatives through our Family Connexions Service.

Taking all this together means that ACE provides experienced, comprehensive, and well-rounded services with an ongoing commitment to service user engagement and service developments.

We hope you find the website accessible whether you are just browsing or seeking specific information. Please email enquiries@aceadoption.com if you require further assistance or advice or ring 0300 369 0556.