Hi there - I am a retired social worker and team manager of a Fostering & Adoption team - retired in 2004. I did work independently after for 5 years, mostly assessing kinship carers for neighbouring LAs.
I can understand how frustrating it is to have to wait so long for anything to happen and many carers wonder why this is, when LAs are in dire need of foster carers. I think most of the problem is lack of social work time (too few social workers) to ensure the process moves along relatively speedily. Most LAs are really struggling with vacancies that they can't fill because of the massive cuts that this govt is making to the budgets of all public services. Having said that I do think the LA sws should let you know why the process is delayed, and give you details of how much longer your application will take.
I'm not sure how your LA are organising their preparation course, some do it one evening a week over 6 or so weeks, others include weekends which makes the course quicker but should cover the same ground.
After the prep course there is still the bulk of the work to do, which is the assessment (or homestudy) which is when the assessing sw visits you and your partner/husband and goes through all your personal details, including looking at the sorts of childhoods that you had, how you were parented, your education and employment, your life style, your marriage/partnership and the other issues that 3cats mentioned.
Again how sws carry out the assessment varies. The usual way is to visit you in your home once a week for a period of 1.5 - 2 hours, and so that can take 6 or 7 weeks. After that the assessing social worker has to get her report written and typed (and this can take quite a time, dependent on how much time they have available) they also have to visit referees and write up reports on these, which again is time consuming. THEN you will be booked into Panel!
I really don't think you should be overly concerned about "speaking out of turn" to the lovely lady (glad she is lovely, cus some of them aren't!) and I think it is wholly reasonable that you politely ask if you could have some idea of the timescales involved. All foster carers (as far as I can recall) used to complain once they were approved and more experienced about how long the whole assessment took, and you probably will too.
The age range of 0 -12 is a very good offer, so if the LA are prioritising assessments (and some do) you should be at the top of the list, and maybe offers of 0- 5 would not be such a priority as there are usually sufficient carers for that age range.
Finally, I would advise that you query anything that you need to while on the prep course. Sometimes these groups can be very cosy and everyone gets along well, and of course that's a good thing, but sometimes there are issues that people wonder about but are not willing to ask in case they look silly. Chances are that there will be others wondering the same things as you, so use the prep course to your best advantage. You really mustn't view the prep course/assessment with rose tinted specs on, or you will be very disillusioned when you actually start to foster. There are no guarantees in fostering and it is not for the feint hearted. Sometimes carers think sws are emphasising the negatives too much, but I was never apologetic about that, because we need to be honest with people about the challenges of caring for very emotionally hurt children.
Many carers believe initially that if you give these children your time and love all will be well, and sometimes it might be enough but mostly it isn't enough, as these children have learned from their birthparents/step-parents that adults are not to be trusted. Learn all you can about attachment theory - it's one of the most important issues in fostering and many LAs put on post approval courses, but you could give yourselves a head start by reading around this topic. I'm sure there are books on Amazon on the topic.
Sorry I'd better stop or I'll be starting the prep course on here!!