Just two and a half weeks to panel now. We have recieved a copy of our social workers report which the panel will read. We have had to proof read it to make sure that everything was correct and how we meant it to come across!

It has been nice to relax this week and not worry about paperwork, but it is also strange as the process feels quite removed from us again and so unreal! Thinking about being a familiy of more than just us two seems very odd, and distant.

We have bought our first toy.

To celebrate ending the Home study!!

(Sassy Talk 'n Talk bilingual phone! It makes Spanish and English sounds)

We will collect little items in celebration of mile stones we reach in the process or special events in our lives.

Other examples we have bought include:

Bilingual story book

First words in Spanish

So in little ways we feel we can prepare and we look forward to explaining when each item was bought, and the anticipation we had. Our hope in in God for the future, and our prayer at the moment is 'help us with the wait, direct us to our children'. Once panel is done and the outcome is possitive (we hope!) we can begin to ask God to bring us to the children He knows will be ours.

We trust you!

Thankyou again to our freinds and family who are holding us through the wait- you are the best!

For those outside the world of adoption, here is some information about the process we have been through so far from online. We are currently checking the drafted form F with our social worker via e-mail!

Assessment Form
The Form F assessment process is a nationally recognised format for the assessment of potential adopters and has been designed by the British Agency for Adoption & Fostering. The home study is demanding and can feel intrusive, but there are good reasons why everything is explored in depth. Adoption is for life and the agency must be sure that the candidates are right for the role. Just as importantly, they must be certain the new parents can make a success of it. Adopters have a crucial role to play at this time, the assessment is a collaborative one with applicants providing evidence of their skills, experience and knowledge to show their competence and understanding confirmed by the social worker's views.

The assessment explores:

Your experience (if any) of caring for children
Providing a safe and caring environment
Working as part of a team
Your understanding of adoption as a lifelong process
Your own childhood and family background and what that has contributed to who you are today
Any previous serious relationships
Any children already in the family
Your understanding of circumstances that lead to children not being able to live with their birth families, and how you think that may affect them
The kind of child you want, and that would fit in with your lifestyle / interests / and personalities.
How you think you might respond to the challenges of parenting.

This is what comes next!!

Adoption Panel

The Adoption Panel consists of up to 10 members from among the following:

An independent chairperson
A locally elected Councillor
2 social workers with at least 3 years experience.
3 independent members drawn from adults who have experience of adoption (ie adopted, been adopted themselves), or who have knowledge of the care system, or professional work with children (ie teachers)
A legal advisor
A medical advisor
An agency adoption advisor
Additionally there is a Panel administrator, who takes the minutes.

Sound fun! From what we hear the 10 people are kind and not at all scary. Lets hope we remember that on June 17th!! Hope this makes the process a little clearer.

We are excited to hear that people in our agency's group that trained with us are going to panel, and some couples have already been approved. It is really exciting and makes our time seem just around the corner!

It has been nice to have some normal life back. We have had no meetings, no pressing forms to fill in and no to-do lists for a couple of weeks since finishing our home study, and are liking it! We have had a draft of our final report to look at, to check we are OK with what the social worker has written, but apart from that we are in waiting mode. We have visited friends, kept working hard and even enjoyed a bit of sun (only here at home, no where exotic!) We are finding our more about Peru, and thinking a lot about the time we will spend there. It is exciting but there are a lot of questions. We are planning to learn some Spanish, but as Catherine has some Portuguese we hope it wont be too tricky! (at least for one of us!) Joining an online group has been great, because it means we can chat to other families adopting from Peru with much more experience than us. We have found out so much. The inter country adoption world is quite small, particularly in the UK, and it seems that no question is too big or small! Everyone is so willing to help, it is very reassuring. I am sure others have found the same.

Need to check the last bit of the report and e-mail it back so that it gets to our agency on time. At least this process has improved my organisation skills!! Thanks all,