Coming up to panel.

[Giggs28]

Hey everyone. Just looking for some people to talk to and some time lines of lead up to panel. We have been given a provisional panel date next month and we are allowing ourselves to get excited. We still have a couple of apps left for assessment. One of these we are expected to have to have read and discussed profiles. Will these be profiles of siblings in the age range we have mentioned? (we are looking for a sibling group of two) Like potential links for us? We are awaiting a tick list (I feel awful saying that) on what we would be able to cope with and what ages, gender etc we would be interested in. We are to send this back and I'm guessing that's what they then will us to get potential links. Our SW already knows the age range we are interested in and gender but I suppose they need the t,'s crossed and i' s dotted. Everything has happened very fast for us. We will get our PAR report sent out next month and only reason there is going to be a delay is due to holidays booked. I understand everyone's journey is different but I'm seeming a lot of comments saying matches/links are happening before panel. Is this usually the case? Would you be made aware of potential matches before your approved? Also has anyone had anything go wrong at this stage? All checks etc have been done. It's been a very quick, positive, straight forward assessment and process. Sorry to ramble on I just have so many questions and know no one to discuss this with. Thanks for reading xx

Giggs28

Congratulations for getting this far.

"Just looking for some people to talk to and some time lines of lead up to panel." Happy to chat, our son came to us five years ago and so the panel stuff is a bit of a memory.

"We have been given a provisional panel date next month and we are allowing ourselves to get excited." Good. It's very unlikely (I think) that a social worker would take someone to panel with doubts, so the fact you are going to panel is an excellent sign. I think you need to be positive and humble, not assuming it is a foregone conclusion but not assuming you will fail! I know, tough! IMHO.

"One of these we are expected to have to have read and discussed profiles. Will these be profiles of siblings in the age range we have mentioned? (we are looking for a sibling group of two)" Great.

"We are awaiting a tick list (I feel awful saying that) on what we would be able to cope with and what ages, gender etc we would be interested in." It's only natural you will have some conditions or situations you could not cope with, do not feel bad.

I'm interested that you mention gender. Normally, I think you need good reasons for wanting a boy or girl. We had a preference for a girl, because that was what we knew, having a birth dd. (Not a great reason really!)

Anyway, I watched a documentary on boys in care and felt happy to have a boy. Our social worker didn't read our bit of info about wanting a girl, and we were matched with a boy, and he is great.

But if you have strong feeling for specific reasons then I am sure you will share them.

"I understand everyone's journey is different but I'm seeming a lot of comments saying matches/links are happening before panel. Is this usually the case?" I've heard of it but I don't think it is the norm and certainly not common, but I am 5 years out of date!

"Also has anyone had anything go wrong at this stage?" I think it can happen but is, again, not common.

Best wishes,

Hi. Thank you for your reply. It's been a tough process but very positive also. We are still apprehensive that it could fall through but trying to be positive with every week that passes. It's so intense that we have to allow ourselves some pat on the back for getting through this (hubby not great with discussing feelings with others).

We would like a boy and a girl. We don't solid block so that's all we get but we have said we would like a boy and a girl.

How long was the process for you altogether? We you presented with profiles fairly quickly?

Thanks again for your reply

We didn't even get any links to online systems until a couple of months after approval - but a lot of people seem to report getting close to profiles in the end of stage 2.

We are with the local authority so won't be looking online as such. We've spoken with social worker and asked if there are still siblings groups available. We have preferences on age and genders and SW has advised there are a few potential matches. We wouldn't turn a profile down based on age or gender but we have been honest about what we would like. Right at the beginning of applying we were told there was a lot of children looking for their forever home, we have been assured that unfortunately for the adopties this is still the case.
Our paperwork advises we need to review the profiles we have been provided with before our last visit. This is in 3 weeks. Last but one visit friday so do you think we should expect profiles then? We also have the manager visit same time.
Exciting times ahead. 💐

@giggs28 - being via LA doesn't preclude online resources.

We started off with our regional one (South West Adoption Consortium) and now Linkmaker.

LA are parallel planning earlier so sometimes a potential match is identified during the assessment however, you SW would be very vague about the children to you.

Good luck!

@mrsed1987 this is the impression we have got. Although we are not naive enough to be pining all our hopes in this happening as we are aware we may be in for a wait. Thank you for your reply and well wishes 💐

Giggs28 "How long was the process for you altogether? We you presented with profiles fairly quickly?"

In total 20 months, a year to get to approval panel, then 4 months until we saw our son's profile, then 4 months until he came to live with us.

We were shown profiles before we were approved. We didn’t get a match from this (the profile/match came a couple of months after panel) but everyone else we know has been matched with children whose profiles they saw before approval. Our LA has lots of children (especially babies) to place.

Thanks for your replies. Looking forward to next visit. Today we are sorting out the spare rooms. Getting shot of most of the clothes, shoes that are gathering dust 🙄💐

Dr-clutter. Good idea. Xx

De-clutter!

We were approved last week! We were shown a couple of profiles at our last social worker meeting but we didn't get access to linkmaker until the day after approval. We are with a VA so they don't have any of their own children to place. Have just started looking on linkmaker and I'm not going to lie, I'm finding it very overwhelming.

In terms of things going wrong, I think it's unlikely at this stage if your PAR is done but you just never know. I was panicking right up until the day that something would go wrong and we'd get rejected but the panel were lovely and gave us a long list of our strengths which was so nice to hear. Wishing you the best of luck.

Aww congratulations to you. So lovely to hear success stories. We are with our LA and have asked if there are potential siblings available at this time and we've been advised yes. More children than adopters which is so sad to think about. We just want to be one step ahead and prepared. How long was the process for you? When you say its overwhelming, is this because of the profiles or the amount of children. I think we would find link matcher difficult, hope we are able to get a positive link and match with LA guided by our social worker. Sending you lots of hugs and best wishes 💐💐

Just overwhelming in the sense that there are so many profiles we don't really know where to start! Hopefully you will find a match locally and won't have to go through that.

It took us about 18 months from initial enquiry to panel but had a bit of a bumpy road as i have had some mental health issues so we had an early medical and a break for some counselling which held us up a little. Smooth sailing from the point we were allocated our social worker last Sep though (we're in Scotland though so things are slightly different.)

Hi, just jumping in to wish you well

We were approved last June (took 13 months to get to panel) and moving towards adopting 2 full siblings at the moment (meeting them next week eek!).

Our SW showed us a couple of profiles before panel which really surprised us tbh. Looking back it was definitely part of the wider conversation around what we could / couldn't handle as parents / challenging our thinking in a good way and it really made us consider a sibling pair that were slightly older.

I don't know about other people, but I feel that my husband and I changed a lot during the process. We'd been together about 7 years really good close relationship, but met when I was 36 and he was 30. So even talking about our childhoods / going through all the PAR stuff was pretty enjoyable on the whole because we learned so much about each other that we probably wouldn't have otherwise, if that makes sense?

Wishing you good luck with panel

Yeah I agree. Me and my hubby have been together for 13 years but I've definitely seen him in a different light. He's not very open but has shocked me through this process. It's filled my heart with so much joy. We are hoping panel comes around quick. Hoping the pressure will ease for a few weeks then whilst we hopefully find the best possible match. Good luck all. Sending best wishes xx