What is ARIS (Adoption Regional Information System)?
The Adoption Regional Information System (ARIS) is a family-finding service within the Strategic Planning and Performance Group (SPPG), managed by a small staff team. The system stores details of all children who are waiting for adoption and all approved adopters across Northern Ireland.
Adoption continues to offer many young children living in foster care the best chance of a permanent home. ARIS improves the chances of children finding an adoptive family, by linking children who are waiting for an adoptive family to adopters who are waiting to be matched with children because they have not been matched with children through their local adoption team. Approved adopters, with their permission, can be linked to children by ARIS if they have not been linked to a child by their own local adoption team within 3 months after they become approved.
Another function of the ARIS system is to gather statistics to provide a comprehensive picture of adoption activity across Northern Ireland. This information is useful for adoption agencies, prospective adopters and members of the public who are interested in adoption. Some of the information is also used to inform recruitment activity and during training for adopters.
Creative Family Finding 
As well as managing the system, the team organise Adoption Exchange Days twice a year. These are special events which allow approved adopters, who have not yet been matched with a child/children, to hear about the children who are waiting for an adoptive family. Exchange Days tend to feature children who have been waiting for a period of time to be matched with adopters, or those children for whom it may be more difficult to match with adopters as these children will have experienced trauma in their early life, which has affected their development. Some children are older than babies/toddlers, and some have particular needs due to their early life experience.
Exchange Days give adopters the opportunity to be much more actively involved in choosing the children they wish to adopt and many adopters have been inspired to reconsider the age of children, or the particular circumstance of a child which initially they thought they could not parent.
Contact ARIS
If you would like to find out more about ARIS:
Telephone: (028) 9536 2231 / 078 2732 5980
Email: laura.whitten@hscni.net