Adoption Panel Chair
Frances Nicholson has worked as a social worker, mainly in Children and Families Services for 40 plus years in several roles.
Since the current Adoption Order became operant in 1989, I have worked in all aspects of adoption services, including placing children for adoption, assessing adoptive families, providing advice and support for birth and adoptive families pre and of post the Courts granting of Adoption Orders, and assisting adopted adults with access to their adoption records and reuniting with birth family members where this is requested and possible. Since circa 2005,I have also been involved in regional ,strategic input to policy and legislation in relation to adoption and children .Most recently I was the Professional Social Work Adviser as the Adoption and Children Act (Northern Ireland) 2022 had its passage through the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Over the years, I have presented the circumstances of children, families for approval and proposed placement matches to adoption panels, I have been a member of adoption panels and have chaired 3 different adoption panels. I strongly value the availability of the right, stable, caring, lifelong adoptive home for children who cannot be parented by their biological parents.
Together with my husband, who also was a long serving social worker, we parented 3 biological grown up children. We have learned to appreciate grownups sometimes welcome aspects of parental counsel too! Laterally we have enjoyed the arrival of 2 grand-daughters and a grandson. Thankfully they live nearby, and we can help with day care and in turn benefit from the attendant exercise routine, when their parents are at work.
In any spare time, I enjoy all types of music and will attend concerts and more recently rejoined a choir. Since retiring from the structure of a daily work pattern, I had hoped to increase time for reading, walking and Pilates but these hopes require further attention.
