What Is Adoption Panel?
At the end of your adoption assessment, you'll be invited to attend our adoption panel. This involves an online meeting with a selection of individuals with experience and expertise in adoption. They'll discuss your application to adopt and your eligibility with you and your social worker.
At panel, you'll be accompanied by your allocated social worker, who will be invited into the meeting first. Then you'll then be welcomed into the meeting and introduced to the panel members.
You'll discuss your application - your assessment report - and after the meeting, panel will make a recommendation to the Agency Decision Maker on whether you should be approved to adopt. If you're, looking to be dual-approval for early permanence, a recommendation is made about that too.
You'll be told about the panel's recommendation straight after the meeting, with the Agency Decision Maker's confirmation following by letter a few days later.
Who Sits on Panel?
Independent representatives present at your panel meeting may include:
- Adoptive parents
- Adults who were adopted as children
- One of our Medical Advisors
- Adoption professionals or other professionals
There will also be members of the Adoption Focus team, including:
- Our Adoption Panel Advisor
- One of our Adoption Panel Administrators
Our panel is a Permanence Panel because it can make recommendations about suitability to adopt - Adoption Focus - as well as recommendations about approval as Fostering for Adoption Carers - Triangle Project.
What Else Do I Need to Know?
The idea of attending adoption panel can seem daunting for some people. However, it’s important to remember that by this point in the adoption process, you will be well prepared following your training and the time you have spent working with your allocated social worker, who will be there to support throughout.
Panel is intended to ensure that all the relevant preparation has been completed and all aspects of adoption have been properly considered, rather than to try and ‘catch out’ applicants.
All members of Adoption Focus panel adhere to a Code of Conduct and have agreed shared values:
- Panel is child-centred
- Panel is respectful
- Panel is open-minded
- Panel embraces diversity
Our panel members are friendly, professional and sympathetic to the feelings of applicants. May are adopters themselves, who have attended panel as applicants in the past.
FAQ - Do I have to go to Panel?
It is not a requirement for adoption applicants to go to Panel, and not going does not prejudice their application. Most do choose to attend. It’s an opportunity for applicants to reflect on their experience to date – how they came to apply with Adoption Focus, what they have learnt during the process and what their expectations are now. It’s also an opportunity for the panel members to meet the prospective adopters and clarify points in the paperwork.
Once our assessment was completed we were invited to attend Adoption Panel, where our application to adopt would be considered. We received an information pack before we attended and Louise ran through some of the questions that she thought we might be asked. The day itself was exciting and the Panel Members were friendly and welcoming to us