hi nananina,
hope you are well! thanks for your once again very helpful message! not much news this end at the moment as im still waiting for the application an info pack to come! may leave it another day or 2 an them cal them if it not arrived to see if its been sent yet, what you think?
as for the age of my daughter she is 2 and ideally i would love to care for babies (will feed the broodiness) or a primary school aged child and i totalt agree with you about starting with yunger ones an working your way up. i certainly wouldnt want to take n someone whos needs i cant meet! my mums cousin has been a foster carer for many years now so im getting lots of advice from her aswell which is going to be really helpful!
as for my work yes im going to give up if we are deemed suitable to foster! cant come quick enough! the little girl i look after is lovely and gets on really well with my daughter but her mum is somewhat "difficult" at times! going to be very sad to not have her anymore but i do think that fostering will suit us as a family much better than me going out to work all the time. just wish the process was a little quicker but i can understand why it takes so long. took me 3 monthe plus to get ofsted registered as a nanny and theres much less to do for that lol! i have been told it takes about 8 months if all goes well, is this roughly right or will it depend on the ssd and how much work load they have on?
lovely to hear from you will keep you updated! xxx

Hi suzieanchloe- glad you found the advice helpful and glad that you made that call to SSD. Re the age of children to foster - much depends on the age of your own children as it is not advisable to foster children the same (or very near in age) to your own children. There really needs to be a 2/3 year gap and sometimes it is best for a fostered child to be the youngest. All of this will be discussed with you by the social worker and you will finally be approved for a specific age range. Obviously older children can sometimes have nore behaviour problems but that can be true of younger ones too, and SSD have much more of a need to foster older children. I think it's best for carers to start with younger children and maybe move on to older children when more experienced.

Re allowances. You will be paid a fostering allowance for each child (rates vary dependent upon age of child and specific local authorities) to cover their day to day needs. In addition you will be paid a "fee" sometimes called a "reward element" that is payment for the work you are doing in caring for the child and to compensate for the fact that you are not earning. You mention being a nanny - presumably you would be doing fostering instead? SSD should send you info about finances with the information they send you.

You sound lovely by the way but don't be worried about asking any questions of SSD and remember they need people like you. I think you're right about your niece and nephew - if you start the process you will be well on the way hopefully if they need foster homes. Again though you will have to think of whether they will fit with your own childre age wise. SSD will expect that you are giving proper consideration to your ownchildren in this, because that is very important.

A useful website is British Agencies for Fostering and Adoption (BAAF) and you can get useful information there.

Be interested to know how you get on

hi roxy12 an NanaNina, thanks so much for the advice. today i have spoken to my local social services an had a type of mini interview over the phone and they are sending out a information pack an appication form so fingers crossed all goes well. it was both your kind words and advice thats helped me make that call so thank you very much! xxx
as for our neice an nephew theres no more news yet but we figered if we are going throuh the process of fostering then we half way there if things change an we need to look at what we can do to help them. feeling very excided now about the whole thing. just gotta read up on money matters now to make sure finacially this will be possible for us to do. any ideas on allowances etc?
also ss asked what age children i would be willing to take, my answer was -
im a nanny an a mum an my expirence ranges from newborn to 10 yrs so therefore i feel i maybe best suited to this age due to my expirence although it would depend on circumstances as each case is very different therefore would consider older if i felt i was able to meet their needs to the best of my ability. was this a good answer? what you think?
once again thanks alot for the lovely advice xxxx

Suzieanchloe - there is a real need for foster carers all over the country. you say you have been thinking about it but haven't yet "committed" yourself to contacting social services. There is no committment at all by making that contact. There is a great deal involved in fostering and you need as much information as you can get. SSD willnot expect you to be committed at the first stage of enquiry (in fact it would be worry if you were). So I would say get in touch and they will give you info and then if you are still interested they will invite you on a preparation course where you will hear about and be able to discuss all aspects of fostering, and decide if it is soemthing you feel you could do. If you still want to continue, a social worker will do an in depth assessment and finally a fostering panel will have to give their approval. It can be quite a lengthy process but I'm sure you realise great care has to be taken.

As far as fostering relatives is concerned (known as kinship care) then this could be a possibility. In fact if children are taken into care, the SSD have a duty to see if there are any relatives who could care for the children befor placing them with other foster carers. As you don't yet know what is happening,is it possible for you to contact the parents of the children in question and tell them you would be preapred to care for the children if it came to that. Otherwise you could contact the SSD and make that offer.

If the children are taken into care SSD should then contact you and would need to do police checks on you both and do an initial assessment on your suitability to care for the children. It is possible to place children for a period of 6 weeks in these circumstances whilst a full assessment of you is undertaken. It goes without saying really that it is so much better in the main for children to be placed with relatives, rather than strangers, so long as they will be loved and cared for. There is also the issue of the children's parents - how wouldyou cope with angle. All foster carers need to be non-judgemental and do their best to understand birth parents and how it has come about they are are unable to properly care for their children and I think this is especially important with relatives.

Anyway I would go ahead and make that call - you won't be committing yourself to anything at this stage. Happy to help further if it wouldhelp- I am a retired social worker with 30 years experience in fostering and adoption and still work independently, mostly assessing kinship carers.

Hi i am 19 and i was in fostercare from the age of 14 years to 18 years.

I have seen some very disturbed children come and go.

I think fostering is wonderfull and i think alot of the people that commit themselfs to this job.

Regarding your niece and nephew....get in touch with your local authority and explain the situation and explain you are willing to foster them.
The only downside is that it will take a while for you to become foster carers as they will do police checks and alot more checks to see if you are suitable for this job.

would you be willing for your niece and nephew to go into foster care until you have been through the training and then if and when you become legal parents then you can have them living with you.

Ring the local authority and they will tell you all about it.

I think it is great you are willing to take this challenge on as it is not easy....its great as you want to help children that are experiencing an awfull child hood.

Good luck

Hi all im new to all this so please bear with me. my partner an i have been thinking about fostering for some time now and have just been doing our homework before we actually commit to applying with the local authority.
in the mean time an incident has happened concerning a family member and we are now concerned that social services will get involved an that the children may go in to care. they are our niece an nephew and obviously care a great deal for them an would do anything to make sure they are well cared for and are willing to foster them ourselves. was just wondering if anyone had any advice on this mater ie, how we go about doing this,whats involved an who we speak to? also does anyone have any advice on if there are any allowances to help us financially? would be very grateful for any advice.
thanks xxx