About Us

Who we are.

DFW Adoption is an independent charity working in the North East of England.

  • We are a Voluntary Adoption Agency registered to provide Domestic Adoption Services.  We provide Adoption Support Services to adults and children.  We are registered to offer Birth Records Counselling and Intermediary Services under Section 98 of the Adoption and Children Act 2002. 
  • Adoption records are required to be kept for 100 years.  We are registered to provide these services for adopted adults and birth relatives whether or not ours was the agency.  Our work is inspected regularly by Ofsted to ensure that we continue to offer a professional and high class service.
  • We are the adoption agency for the Church of England in the Diocese of Durham, but we work also with people of all faiths or none and with all ethnic sections of the community.
  • We work closely with other adoption agencies in the region and with local authorities all over the country who are looking for adoptive parents for children in their care.
  • Donations and fundraising help us to maintain and improve our services.
  • We cover the whole of the North East of England

What we do

  • We find adoptive parents for children from many different backgrounds who cannot be brought up within their own families.
  • We provide preparation, training and support to adoptive parents and their children at every stage of the adoption process.
  • We offer a specialist service to adopted people who wish to find information about their original family.
  • We provide advice and support to birth relatives of adopted people.
  • We can also help adopted people and their birth relatives get in touch with each other.

Latest News

Press release from the Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies (CVAA)

DFW Adoption is a member of the CVAA alongside 31 other VAAs in the UK. CVAA welcomes the current government focus and commitment to adoption as one of a range of options for achieving security and stability for children in care, where they cannot be raised within their family of birth Read More

Adoption Action Plan for Tackling Delay

Information about the Government's adoption action plan - which sets out a range of proposals to speed up the process for children, to overhaul the service for prospective adopters and to strengthen local accountability for the timeliness of adoption services. Read More

The need for effective post-adoption parenting training. (Article by Dave Harrop published in The Guardian - Tuesday 13 March 2012).

An agency in Durham has started running parenting training to provide support for families who have adopted Read More