Fostering Process

[Lozza1979]

Evening all, myself and my hubby started the foster process in April and have been given a date for panel in Dec. Due to COVID, we have only seen our SW once in person.. but plenty of times via Zoom.

Can i ask how long your process took?? And also how u found panel, Thank you beautiful people xx

panel should be a rubber stamping process and something of a celebration and welcome. Any issues should be resolved beforehand and if they arent sorted panel would normally be postponed or a decision made not to go to panel. Very unusual for someone to go to panel with a positive recommendation and then be refused. Did hear of one case where someone made an awful racist comment leading to them being turned down.

Thank you for your quick reply, we are so excited and a little nervous x

In our agency it’s roughly 6 months from initial contact to panel, give or take depending on any particularly complex situations. Covid isn’t really making much difference on timescales for us.

I present assessments to panel sometimes and have sat on panel many times and despite knowing the members are always friendly, I still get nervous every time. I think that’s normal!

Like pp said, if you are going to panel then it is a very strong indicator that things look likely. It’s fairly unusual that people are turned down once they get that far. Just be yourselves as that is what they want to see 😊

Thats good news then we have done the skills to foster course, and done our matching meeting. I think she just wants to speak to our boys on there own again.....and then do another virtual visit. My hubby will work from home, and I will got down to part time on intensive care, if they allow me too with whats going on. Will the panel question us.....we've not really discussed panel yet xx

Our process took 8 months from first phone call to panel. I was terrified going to panel but everyone made us feel welcome and they all want you to pass. Here's to exciting times