XI. Going to Panel, Page 2

Four Possible Outcomes

The panel meeting can have four possible outcomes as far as you are concerned.

One:

The panel may recommend your approval as prospective adopters in principle, without any specific child in mind. It used to be that adopters were given a blanket approval. That was when almost all placements were of tiny, healthy babies. Now adopters normally are approved for a specified range of placements, for example, to adopt a slightly mentally handicapped child under the age of five, a sibling group of two to four children without mental handicaps, or one or two children of school age with a history of sexual or emotional abuse. This will have been thoroughly discussed with you by the social worker, and is derived directly from your Form F. If your application is accepted without reference to a particular child, if and when a child is eventually matched with you, that matching must also go before the panel for approval.

Two:

The panel may in addition to recommending your approval as adopters also recommend you be matched as parents for a particular child. This happens either when your application to adopt was initially made because you were interested in a particular child or sibling group that you saw advertised, or when you have learned about a particular child during the home study period and decided you wanted to aim for him especially. If this is the case, the next step for you is either finding out more about the child before deciding to go ahead, or beginning to meet your child almost immediately, if you have not already done so.

Unfortunately there is a catch here. The panel may have been considering more than one family for the child in question.

In a one-family matching meeting only one family is put forward for the child in question, and the panel either accepts or rejects the match. In a multiple-family case the social workers have several families whom they consider to be more or less equally suitable for the child and the panel is asked to do the final selection, with the additional possibility that they reject them all. It is usual for the social workers to tell you which kind of situation you are in, and naturally people tend to be more nervous if they are only one family of several who are being put forward, because they know there is a significant chance of not being selected.

Agencies differ in their use of singe- or multiple-family matching meetings. Your own personality will probably dictate whether you are anxious or philosophical or bouncing off the walls in the days before a matching meeting. There is no pretending it isn’t a time of great stress. Just try to deal with it as well as you can. Don’t take your stress out on your partner or children: it isn’t their fault. Your social worker should be available to metaphorically hold your hand.

Three:

The panel may recommend that your application be rejected by the agency. This could be an outright rejection of you as adopters; or it could be a rejection of your application for a particular child, either because they chose another family from the selection put forward by the social worker, or because they simply didn’t feel you and the child were right for each other, regardless of whether or not there were other applicants.

Four:

The panel may postpone their decision. This can happen either in cases of an application to adopt in principle or when you are being matched with a particular child.

The panel’s recommendations then go to a designated senior officer of the agency (who is not a member of the panel) who makes the final legal decision. There will then be a written notification from the agency, which also notifies the applicants’ local authority, health authority, local education authority and family doctor.

In any case, the phone finally rings. Somehow it sounds different from all the other times. You pick it up. You were right. It’s her.

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