During National Adoption Week, the week beginning November 10, the spotlight falls on some 3,000 children who leave local authority care annually for a new ‘forever family’, as well as the 2,000 children a year for whom adoptive parents are never found.

Crucial to adoption is the panel of local volunteers who have a knowledge of adoption, and so are qualified to recommend people to adopt children in care.

These include independent individuals, professionals and social workers, some of whom have experienced adoption themslves.

Former adoption social worker Hester Robinson is someone who gives up a few days a month to prepare for and sit on the panel of a regional adoption and fostering agency – Parents And Children Together (Pact).

Hester said: “Volunteering seems such a logical and positive step in using my knowledge to ensure that there are safe and solid placement opportunities for looked-after children. That is the most important and exciting thing.”

Regulations require an adoption agency, whether voluntary, like Pact, or statutory, such as Oxfordshire’s social services, to consider people hoping to be approved to adopt.

Hester is one of up to ten people who meet twice a month to hear about four applications at each meeting.

“Each application takes about two hours’ preparatory reading so that we can ask incisive questions of prospective families,” said Hester. “The kind of thing we are hoping to find on the panel might be something like asking what their support network of friends and family is like for the times when things get tough.” And things can get tough, as voluntary adoption agencies such as Pact have become especially skilled in finding homes for sibling groups, older children, or those who have learning or mobility difficulties. “The support is always there, and the rewards are enormous,”said Hester. One of Pact’s family of adopters likened the lifetime of help and advice available to a “buffet table” – in other words, plenty of resources and people to talk to, all of which adopters can access if and whenever they feel the need.

While Pact’s panel considers potential adopters, it doesn’t have the responsibility of making recommendations for children as statutory agencies do. Their panels have three roles: to consider whether a child should be placed for adoption; to recommend prospective adopters, and to approve the link to any new prospective family that is proposed for a looked-after child.

In either setting, volunteers like Hester are the gateway to realising the dreams of people who may have waited years for their chance to have a family.

For more information about adoption in this region, call Pact on 0118 938 7600, or visit the www.pactcharity.org website or the site of the British Association for Adoption and Fostering: www.baaf.org.uk for information on other adoption agencies.