panel

It’s a beautiful, sunny Wednesday morning. We’re suited and booted and on our way to panel to be approved as foster carers. We’re meeting Stef (our Form F assessor) at a café near to where the panel is taking place, to have a little run through the potential questions we can expect. As someone who has served on the panel, I have a view on the questions I might have asked us if the roles were reversed. And I have a plan.

If you’ve been following my blog you’ll know that my husband and I are going to panel to be approved as foster carers on 20th April (or not as the case may be).

It’s Friday evening. In the dining room there are four very noisy, very excited boys getting stuck into their sleepover fun. They are shrieking at each other, their mouths open to reveal half masticated hotdog as they discuss the merits of the caterpillar game (a pursuit involving sleeping bags and a staircase). I wonder whether it was such a great idea to suggest tonight as the night to sign off our Form F assessment with our assessor Stef. But anyway it’s too late; Stef arrives at the peak of the children’s excitement.