The agonising selection procedure is over and there are usually huge sighs of relief from the newly-approved adopters. But in some ways the hardest part of adopting a child has yet to come...

The next stage involves the delicate process of finding a suitable child for your family. This can take anything from a few weeks to a few years. How long will depend on what sort of child you are prepared to and have been approved to adopt.

You will be able to receive lists of children suitable for adoption. Your local agency will be able to supply you with details of local children - although sometimes local children, for various reasons, can be adopted only outside their area.

You can also contact The British Agencies for Adoption and Fostering (BAAF) which has a family finding service and publishes Be My Parent (BMP), a bi-monthly newspaper which contains a children's supplement profiling children seeking adoption or a long term foster home.

BAAF also publishes Focus on Fives, a fortnightly newsletter for approved carers which features children aged five or under. This is only available for approved adopters. For information call 020 7593 2060.

BAAFLink is a computerised family-finding service. It provides a national register of approved families from adoption agencies throughout the UK and details of children needing permanent new families.

Suitable matches are then referred to social workers connected to the family and the child to follow up. For more information on BAAFLink call 0191 232 3200. Once a suitable match has been found, you will be able to make the next important step - meeting the child

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