The Fostering Panel

Once this assessment is complete, the report is presented to a Fostering Panel.

If your application reaches the stage of going before an adoption panel, the chances are it will succeed - applications that do fail tend to be screened out earlier in the procedure.

By law there have to be a number of outside members of the panel including a doctor, a councillor and at least three lay members, who may include people who are foster carers themselves.

The panel can only make recommendations to an agency about whether or not someone should be approved. As well as approving an applicant to become a foster carer, it also recommends what age of children should be placed with you and what type of fostering you should undertake, for example, short-term, long-term, emergency.

It is the agency that then considers the panel's recommendations and makes the final decision.

In the past, prospective foster carers were not invited to the panel hearing but now many authorities have changed their policy to allow applicants to attend the meeting so that they can be given an opportunity to contribute.

In the event of an application being refused, there is little in terms of legal redress for an applicant. You could take the issue to the social services committee of the local authority and maybe to the local government ombudsman.

Once the panel has made its recommendations, the case will go back to the adoption agency and if approved, the applicants will be free to take on their first placement.

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