of interest form whether or not to accept this, unless there are exceptional circumstances which mean that longer is needed. To help the agency make this decision, the agency may need to arrange a visit, have a meeting or a pre-planned telephone call (whichever is considered most appropriate in each individual case) with the prospective adopter. Provided an agency has sufficient capacity, they should assess prospective adopters who are able to meet the needs of any children awaiting adoption and not just focus on recruiting adopters for children in their own local area. There may be circumstances in which it would not be appropriate for an agency to accept a registration of interest, such as where they temporarily lack capacity to take on more prospective adopters. In cases like this, the agency should redirect the prospective adopter to the National Gateway for Adoption or another agency which is currently recruiting. 3.15. Adoption agencies must not refuse to accept a registration of interest on the grounds of, for example, a prospective adopter’s ethnicity, age, health, sexual orientation, religious beliefs or because they do not share the same ethnicity, culture or religious beliefs as the children waiting for an adoptive family. 63 3.16. Religious persuasion, racial origin and cultural and linguistic background are among the matters to be considered in determining the appropriate match for a child. In some cases one of them may be an important consideration. Only in very exceptional circumstances should matching a child with prospective adopters be delayed solely on the ground that the available prospective adopters do not match the child’s religious persuasion, racial origin, or cultural or linguistic background. The agency must assess a prospective adopter’s abil