Panel Meeting

Going to Panel 

The Panel will carry out the final checks before making a recommendation to Capstone Foster Care about your suitability to become a foster carer.

What is Panel?

All fostering agencies are required to create a panel of people who can offer experienced and knowledgeable feedback about the suitability and capability of potential and current foster carers working with Capstone Foster Care. A fostering panel is a carefully selected group of people who meet regularly to consider information presented to them about the suitability of families applying to become foster carers.

Your Panel Meeting

Panel members will have already read your assessment report before your panel meeting. Prior to you joining the meeting the panel will have discussed your assessment and the chair will enable members to ask questions about the information.

The panel chair will ask panel members for comments and queries on the report and accompanying documents that may require further clarification.

After your meeting with the panel is completed you will usually be given verbal feedback on the panel’s recommendations. The panel’s recommendations and the meeting minutes will be sent to the agency decision-maker for final consideration and approval. The recommendations and minutes are normally agreed within 5-10 working days of the panel meeting.

The Agency Decision Maker is tasked with making the decision about whether you are suitable to be approved or reapproved as foster carers for the agency or whether, for some valid reason, your approval should be terminated. In most cases, the agency decision-maker accepts the recommendation provided by the panel.

To find out more about becoming a foster carer, contact our team of fostering advisors today.