Skip over main navigation
  • Log in
  • Basket: (0 items)
ARC Adoption North East
0191 516 6466
  • Search
  • Email
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
Adoption process Adoption enquiry
Menu
  • About us
    • Values and mission
    • Meet the team
      • Our team
      • Our trustees
      • Our adoption panel
    • Vacancies
    • Reports and policy
      • Ofsted rating
      • Statement of purpose
      • Equality and diversity policy
      • Comments, compliments, and complaints policy
    • Contact us
  • About Adoption
    • How adoption works
    • Why choose a Voluntary Adoption Agency
    • The adoption process
      • Initial visit
      • Checks and references
      • Home visits
      • Adoption panel
      • Finding the right child for you
      • Matching panel
      • Make an enquiry
    • LGBTQ+
    • Inter-country adoption
    • Fostering for adoption
    • Adoption FAQs
    • Adopter reviews of ARC
  • Adoption support
    • Therapeutic support
      • Therapeutic adoption support services
      • Support groups and events
      • Buddy service
      • Digital life story
      • Birth family support
    • Training
      • Bonding through play
      • Playful parenting
      • Connected by adoption
      • Training dates
    • Learning resources
    • Children's guide to adoption
  • Stories & impact
    • Adoption statistics and facts
    • Real life stories and recommended reading
  • Support our work
    • The Helen Linforth Children’s Fund
    • Volunteer
    • Become a buddy
    • Friends of ARC
  • News & events
    • News articles
    • Information Events & Workshops
  • Admin
    • Log in
  • Basket: (0 items)
  • Therapeutic Adoption Support Service
  1. Adoption support
  2. Therapeutic support
  3. Therapeutic adoption support services

Therapeutic Adoption Support Service

The ARC Adoption team has a great deal of experience of working with children, families and networks brought together through adoption, and our dedicated Therapeutic Adoption Support Service (TASS) is there to support families through the journey of adoption and beyond, proactively anticipating and responding to needs for support.

In order to provide the best possible wraparound support to our families, our TASS team brings together skills and experience from multiple disciplines and professional backgrounds including child and family based social work, early years teaching and development and primary education teaching. In addition, our experienced support co-ordinator and skilled adoption and family support workers, are all supported in their work by our agency clinical psychologist. 

We understand that while adoption will bring lots of happiness and joy, it can also bring worries, challenges and bumps along the way, so the support we offer is for life and we are always just a phone call away. See below for more details of the forms of support we offer.


Initial support

If you adopt with the support of ARC, you will be introduced to the TASS team during the matching process. They will work with you when a child is placed to complete a baseline assessment, helping to identify any early support requirements and provide a starting point to measure future development. All children and families are different, and so are requirements for support – some need very little, and some need a little more.

Ongoing support for you and your family

Ongoing, our team is on hand to support children, parents and the wider family with advice, training and any further mediation related to any of the following and more. We know it’s not always easy to reach out, so we try our best to provide a quick response to any requests for help and make things as easy as possible.

  • Stress, worries, anxieties
  • Managing behaviour
  • Dealing with emotions
  • Life story work
    • Support in having difficult conversations
    • Access to ARCBOX our innovative and child-centred digital life story tool, providing children with the opportunity to contribute to a personalised, fun to use, lasting digital record of their life, resulting in a truly ‘living’ chronology that can be used as a therapeutic tool
  • Attachment and trauma difficulties
  • Understanding adoption for the wider family
  • Managing life at school
  • Therapeutic parenting principles and practise e.g. Level 1 Theraplay

Other professional support

As well as our core TASS team, we work closely with other professionals and organisations to help support our families.

We can offer counselling services in conjunction with Creative Minds who specialise in working with children and families dealing with trauma, abuse and complex needs. We also work with a Paediatric Occupational Therapist to help inform the work we do with families.

We can also help our families with accessing the Adoption Support Fund as and when needed. 

“We adopted our first child and then adopted their sibling; our journey was tough at times, but we always had Arc Adoption there supporting us. There are so many positives with adopting through ARC Adoption, most importantly the staff. Every staff member is approachable, warm, friendly, and honest. It didn’t matter what support we needed they were always there and always happy to help. Years after going through the adoption process, we still feel supported to this day. We know we can pick the phone up whenever we need support and attend regular training sessions. ARC adoption changed our lives, and we cannot thank them enough.”

Dan and Simon

Workshops and online learning

As well as being able to pick up the phone and talk to us about something specific, we also host regular workshops to support our families and provide practical advice on a wide range of topics.  These are a great way for our adopters to arm themselves with useful information or brush up on knowledge of training they have experienced earlier in the adoption process.

Take a look at some of our upcoming workshops here.

We also provide all of our adopters with free access to the Adopter Hub (soon to be known as CATCH), an online portal which contains a huge amount of resources for adoptive families. They host regular live webinars on pertinent topics, which can also be viewed on-demand.

Peer and social support

Informal peer and social support is also of great value to our families. Sometimes a fun day out or chatting to someone in a similar situation as yourself can make a real difference, so we organise and facilitate a range of groups and events that encourage parents, children or the whole family to come together with others, as well as an informal opportunity to check in with our team.

Find out more about our different support groups, events and activities available to adopters at ARC Adoption North East here.

Adopters are also matched with a more experienced Buddy in Stage 2 of the adoption process. Find out more about our Buddy Scheme here.

Support for schools

As well as working with families directly, we can also work with children’s schools to provide advice, guidance and strategies on how best to support adopted children in school, in line with their needs, behaviours, past experiences and traumas.

We recently launched an online workshop for schools to help promote and communicate the above to a wider audience. Please contact us if you’d like more details of our next session.


If you would like to find out more information about the support available from ARC Adoption North East please call 0191 516 6466 or email [email protected]

 

Published: 16th July, 2019

Updated: 4th August, 2022

Author: Vanessa Martyn

Share this page
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Latest

  • Specialist support for adopting siblings

    Specialist support for adopting siblings

    For anyone considering adopting brothers and sisters, the support available from your adoption agency will be important. Here we talk about the types of support that we are proud to provide to our families at ARC Adoption.

  • Managing Transitions Workshop - Monday 22nd August 2022

    Managing Transitions Workshop - Monday 22nd August 2022

    ARC Adoption North East would like to invite their families to Managing Transitions virtual workshop.

  • Sibling Adoption Information Event - Saturday 3rd September 2022

    Sibling Adoption Information Event - Saturday 3rd September 2022

    ARC Adoption is hosting a special online information event for people to find out more about adopting brothers and sisters, and the ongoing support available.

  • Benefits of Adopting Siblings - Better off Together

    Benefits of Adopting Siblings - Better off Together

    To mark the launch of a new campaign to find families for brothers and sisters alongside our partners Adopt Coast to Coast, we’ve put together our list of reasons why adopting siblings at the same time, is something prospective adopters should seriously consider.

Most read

  • How adoption works

    How adoption works

    Adoption is a way of providing new families for children who cannot be looked after by their birth parents and need to belong to a new family.

  • How long does the UK adoption process take?

  • Matching panel

    Matching panel

    Once the family finding process is complete the match will need to be agreed formally by the adoption panel for the child’s agency. If approval is recommended by the adoption panel for the match, the child’s adoption agency decision maker then makes the final decision.

  • Fostering for adoption

    Fostering for adoption

    At ARC Adoption North East are committed to exploring different routes to adoption. ARC Adoption offers an early permanence route, often referred to as fostering for adoption or foster to adopt. Fostering for adoption means that young children, usually babies, are placed at a young age with approved potential adopters who would also be approved temporary foster carers whilst the family court decides on the child’s future.

  • Initial visit

    Initial visit

    Following your initial enquiry, if you would like to progress with the adoption process a member of ARC Adoption North East’s team will visit you in your home. The initial visit will be very informal and take place at a date and time that is convenient for you and will last about two hours. It’s an opportunity to have your questions answered in more detail and help the team get to know you better.

  • Checks and references

    Checks and references

    Stage one of the adoption process begins after you have received some general information, an initial visit at your home and ARC Adoption North East are in receipt of your ‘registration of interest’ from you.

  • Contact us

    Contact us

    At ARC Adoption North East we value your opinion. All compliments, comments and complaints are accepted and considered with the greatest respect. Your feedback is welcomed to help develop ARC Adoption North East’s services.

  • Finding the right child for you

    Finding the right child for you

    Once you become an approved adopter, it’s time to start looking for the right child or children that will join your family.

  • Adoption statistics and facts

    Here are just a few statistics relating to adoption in the North East of England and the UK as a whole, as well as some facts about who can adopt.

  • Intercountry adoption

    Intercountry adoption

    ARC Adoption North East is registered with Ofsted to provide inter-country adoption services

Sign up for our newsletter

Please enter your first name
Please enter your last name
Please enter your email address Please enter a valid email address (e.g. [email protected])

Connect with us

    • Twitter
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
  • Contact us
  • Accessibility
  • Sitemap
  • Terms and conditions
  • Privacy policy
  • Login
  • Logout
  • Manager

ARC Adoption North East's office hours:

Monday to Thursday 09:00 until 17:00, and Friday 09:00 until 16:30.

You can also contact us anytime at [email protected]