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hi garden01we had to have a full assessment done again,that was after they did an 8 week viability assessment.it took about 4 months from start to finish.and hopefully we will be going to panel very soon, it has been put back 5 times ,as la were busy with other adopters,cant wait for it to be finished.do they support your adoption? if so should be a bit easier.x

Thank you Princess4...... I appreciate your reply.We are not planning adoption of placed child, so we need to be matched like everybody else. I am happy for you and that you are at the end of the process.....and the time scale is reassuring. Hope to hear about your story in the future. Would love to hear about your experiences.........xx

Hi i'm hopefully just nearing the end of the adoption process,final hearing due soon!the l/a used my form f to speed things up but i still had to go through it all again,took about 4 months,good thing is i was prepared having gone through fostering,experience certainly helps with attatchment issues and bf contact,i had to stop fostering for 12 months to allow settling in period,its been 9 months from placement order to now!the court dates seem to just keep being moved,i'm told the s/w have to deal with urgent cases before ours!good luck its all so worth it.x

Thank you Lassie.....I appreciate you explaining that and thanks for the encouragement.....the time scale sounds reassuring from your experience too. Glad to hear the original Form F was put to use after all that work. Seems a shame to repeat history and paperwork.....especially if it keeps children in care, although I would always support things being done properly.Would love to hear your story in the future too..xx

we adopted our foster children from the same L.A. And they did not use our old form F at all, the info had to be rewritten. it took 8 months or so, SW was very slow. also the panel was not helpfull, had to be approved first for any child, then wait a month for matching with the children for who we did it all for in the first place, then had to spend two weeks intros with the children we already knew. we where told this was such an unusual situation, had never ever happened before so no one knew what to do with us. Now we sort of automatically lost our fostercarer status, so will have to be reassessed from scratch again if we want to foster again. as again, am told this never happens normally adopters dont foster and vice versa.

how on earth do you do introductions with children already living with you? and a nonsense to say fosters carers dont adopt, of course they do, and not so rarely that your LA wouldn't know about it! and adopters sometimes go on to foster. what a strange attitude!the matching post approval i think is maybe not that odd, but most fc's i know go to approval and mathcing panel the same day so get both approvals at the same time. certainly is what happened with me and that was 17 years ago!

I also adopted one of my fosterlings, my form f was used and the assessment took around 6 months, from applying formally in writing to panel (approval and matching was the same panel). As i was already fostering another child they said the year off would start from the day that littlie left. He left 11 months post adoption so they said there was no point starting it for 1 month, so I never had to have time off, although I only fostered 1 baby (instead of 2 or 3, which I had done up until adopting my little man)after that. It is now 4 years on and I have this summer started fostering 2 babies again, as little man (now almost 8 is doing so well)I do remember having a letter stating introductions would start on xx date, which we all had a laugh about!I do know of other adopters who have adopted thier foster child who did have to have a year off, then returned to fostering with no issue, so i guess each la is different. It is not that uncommon here for fc to adopt, but usually it is hard to place child/ren (like my lad was ) or disabled children, but some have been 'no issue' babies. good luck in your adoption, bm.