During the adoption process, you go to two panels. One is your approval panel, and the other is your matching panel. The first approves you to adopt, and you can then start the family-finding process, the latter approves the match between you and the child, and then you can start the introductions process of them coming to live with you.
These two days are undoubtedly two of the most terrifying days of the process. The second for me, personally, was a much bigger day. The first when I look back now was a kind of non-event.
Approval Panel - This comes at the end of Stage Two. The process is broken down into parts, Stage Two is also sometimes known as the home study, where your social worker comes to the house, and you chat through many many different things as they build a report up to say why you would be good adoptive parents, what your life experiences bring, what age you would be most suited to adopt etc.
You then go to the panel. Since COVID these have been done on Zoom, and I think they still are. The panel is made up of the chair, adopters, social workers, sometimes a medical advisor, education specialists, etc. It varies from agency to agency I think. What you have to remember is they are all there to support you. Your social worker also attends. I think you can ask your social worker to attend on your behalf if it wasn't the right thing for you to attend.
We were really lucky and had a relatively positive experience. Our social worker had a good idea of what they were going to ask, she had compiled our report and found a few 'gaps' she thought they would potentially pick up on, and also some other points that they may be interested in. One thing we knew would come up was my anxiety, which affected me the most at 16/17 years old, and now is quite well managed - but I feel anxiety is never completely gone. In the report, this had been seen as a positive, what I have been through, how I could relate to an anxious child and what techniques and experiences I could share with them. But it was likely the panel would ask how I manage this now, what if it worsens again, and how does Pete support me when I am struggling.
You can be quite well prepared for the panel - nothing at all was asked that we didn't expect. There are some 'set' questions that will always get asked, and some more specific to you. If you have a good social worker you will have been through this with them - and they are there on the day to jump in and support you as you need it.
So we join the Zoom waiting room after I had paced the house all morning! We get let in - the chair introduces themselves and runs you through how it works. The panel introduce themselves and asks you questions. Depending on the panel, You get put back in the waiting room or into a holding room. You will then get told the panel's provisional recommendation.
Now - here is my biggest adoption bugbear. Everything is a recommendation, nothing is a decision! So they give a recommendation, and we got a unanimously positive decision - this is pretty much a dead cert it's a yes. But first, it needs to go to the ADM - Agency Decision Maker. Honestly, I should write an adoption acronym dictionary!
We then get informed officially within two weeks or so of the ADM's decision. It was unanimous for us so we were then allowed to go on and start family finding prior to the ADM decision.
Then you go through family finding. THEN you go to panel number two. this is your matching panel. You have found a child, and the child's social worker approves that you would be a good match - and I think your social worker and the childs write a new report and a matching matrix of why you would be well suited. Then you go to the Matching Panel. Same format as the first.
I'll never forget this day. We knew so much about little Moose, we'd met him only once, met his foster carers a few times, and heard from many a professional about him, we had worked out how our lives would work around him and with him. We had decided what his room would be like, and how we would do bath time to suit his needs. Worked out he what he might need to make his life as great as it could be. How we could modify the house to suit him. Almost everything we could think of.
I was scared that I'd talk too much - I was scared I would dig myself into a hole. I was petrified I'd panic and talk over Pete the whole time. What if I said the wrong thing and ruined it for us all?
The panel was hard, and the questions were in-depth, but I spoke honestly, openly and from my heart about Moose, and how he was going to fit in our family so perfectly.
When the panel chair came back in to tell us, that it was a unanimous yes that they would be recommending us to adopt Moose, I felt a wave of emotions I have never felt before. My eyes filled with tears, Moose was going to be coming home. Finally, after 18 months of this process, we were finally going to be daddies! I cried, I held on to Pete so tightly as she listed the reasons they felt we were such a great match. "It is clear you have incorporated him into your life, and have already taken ownership of his future" and it's true, we had. We were so ready, we knew he was our son - we knew how perfect it would be.
Now look - nothing is final until the ADM letter comes. And even now we are in limbo. Moose is home with us, but we still don't have an adoption order as this takes time. But for now, we live in the moment, we provide the best care we can for Moose and make sure he knows he is safe and loved.
If your panel is coming up, try not to let the panel scare you, yes feel nervous, but no one is out there to catch you out, and if you think you are, ask your social worker to step in and help answer this question. For us, the first was a non-event in the sense that we went to work 30 minutes later and nothing came of it that day. The matching Panel was incredible. We rang all of our family "We have matched with Moose!" - I finally felt I could tell people at work, and I told more friends than I had before - for the first time, things felt certain, it was worth telling people.
The uncertainties are hard, for me at least. Our first social worker once said "Trust the process, Ross" - that's hard for a self-confessed control freak. But I suppose you have to, we can't change the process, well not one person whilst they are in the middle of it, maybe one day!
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