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| Pradeep and Matthew on their wedding day |
A gay couple in London claim they were denied permission to adopt because their house wasn’t big enough – even though it has three bedrooms.
Matthew Broadway-Horner, 42, and Pradeep De Silva, 39, say this is just one example of how random the process seemed to be after they were on the books to adopt at Tower Hamlets council for two years.
They say they wanted to adopt one child or siblings up to eight years old and of any ethnicity.
But despite being approved in theory, they gave up when it came to actually being assigned a child because they kept being rejected for reasons which didn’t seem logical.
Matthew told Metro.co.uk that he wants to see the system change because at the moment too many people are dropping out.
He claimed social services rejected them for one child because they had no toys in their house, even though they had no kids yet.
‘Which childless couple has toys in the house,’ he pointed out. ‘You would think it was slightly weird.’
And he added some of the questions he and Prad were asked made him raise an eyebrow, such as who would take on the role of mother even though they would be two dads to the child.
‘We were asked what women we have in our family as if our living condition was somehow psychologically damaging,’ Matthew added.
Social workers said they were not ethnically accepting enough despite being an interracial couple, and they didn’t know enough about Romanian or Nigerian culture. But they were very willing to learn about the background of any child, he added.
They thought they would be considered a ‘golden couple’ as they were not restricting themselves to a particular ethnicity or to very young children. We didn’t want a two-year-old white girl because we knew lots of people [applying to adopt] wanted a white child,’ Matthew explained.
Pradeep De Silva and Matthew Broadway-Horner
Pradeep feeding a family member’s child
He said he and Prad could have offered a child ‘patience, passion, objectivity, nurture and a side salad of autonomy as fertile soil to grow and be the person they were born to be.’
As a child, Matthew himself was adopted. He said: ‘In a process ran by social workers for many years, you would have thought that it was logical, well thought out and finely tuned to ensure that the adopter is having a good experience from beginning to end of the journey. This is not the case.’
He said social workers once asked why they were applying to adopt one child instead of siblings, but when they changed their options were told they should go for one child instead.
And he added they went from social worker to social worker, eating into savings they had put aside for the child because they had to take time off work including unpaid leave for training. If they asked to reschedule meetings because of work, social workers cast doubt on their commitment to the process, he added.
Tower Hamlets Council said:
‘Currently across the UK, there are far more families waiting to be matched with children than there are children who need to be adopted. Social workers, therefore, have a difficult task in deciding where to place children into adoptive care.
‘We acknowledge that the period between being approved for adoption and being allocated a child/children can be an extremely frustrating and difficult time for prospective adopters. Support is always available to adopters during this period. This very issue is being discussed at the next pan-London adoption exchange event next week.
‘In this specific case, we can confirm that the couple were approved for adoption by us in September 2014.
‘As yet a match has not been made despite attempts from both the family and a number of local authorities including us. As a result, they have now decided to withdraw from the process. It is unfortunate that they have decided on this course of action and we will retain an open door should they change their mind.’
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