To quit my job and lose a ton of money/salary?

Well done OP. Now don’t make any big decisions this week. Try and relax and let your nervous system get out of flight/fight mode so you can think clearly. Could you try and do something relaxing for yourself one day this week whilst the children are at school? A massage or a haircut or something?

Good. You need space to make the right decision and hopefully any back to work procedures will provide another opportunity for you to set all of this out in formal channels.

I don't think anyone here is saying don't quit your job. More don't do it before you've exhausted all options.

It's very hard to get a part time professional job. Much easier to reduce hours/ make a sideways move in a company you are already with. This is the main reason I would be wary of jumping too soon.

It's clearly not working for anyone with the contractual hours you currently have. But you are not demanding to work full time and would also be open to a change in your role/sharing responsibilities.

The onus is on them to demonstrate it's not possible.

Take some time and see where you are at in January. The potential for a long term sickness absence may make your employer reconsider things.

Up until now you've just about been managing everything so everyone has left you to it as the best of the options for them - but not for you.

@SparklyLimeHair with kindness I think you are understandably not in the best mental health at the moment.
It’s so hard to make decisions when you are so overwhelmed so I am really happy you have been signed off sick.

Don’t make any decisions this week- just breathe and take a minute. Does your company have private health cover or an employee assistance plan? If so these are both good ways to access counselling which I think would be useful for you to work out your next steps.

People who seek to become foster carers in a planned way do all their assessments before they are allowed to accept any children. In many cases, they would be asked to start off with respite or short term care to see how many manage before they would take a child for a long term placement. Of course, sometimes short term placements unexpectedly become long term, but usually it's a gradual move into it.

People usually become kinship carers in an emergency situation. So a very brief check to see if a child can go there that night, then a temporary approval for up to 16 weeks, and then fostering panel. During that 16 weeks there's an intense, in depth assessment to go through what it requires, what it means, for the FC to reflect on their own life and this possible life shift. Many temporary kinship carers aren't approved for long term after that 16 weeks because they can't commit to it - it's a huge undertaking - and there's no criticism if that's the case, but it would mean seeking a new foster carer. So there's rarely any opportunity for the kinship carers to plan their lives in advance, but expectation that they adapt their lifestyle over time. I'm not sure why you'd assume that no one would have spoken to the OP about this, that's a pretty strange take and a quick Google would have saved you the embarrassment but there you go.

Kinship care isn't about social engineering to place children with high earners. Someone's finances would be taken into account to see if it's sustainable, but the priority is can they meet the children's needs. Which for children who have experienced trauma and been separated from parents, is stability, time, nurture. The reality is that high earners often have high pressure, long hours, high commitments to the job. Nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't lend itself to being emotionally available to traumatised children, and having a savings account or the potential to pay for university doesn't make up for that. It also doesn't help the carer to try and split themselves in two.

@SparklyLimeHair the benefit of going off sick if you have 6 months full pay is savings - reduce outgoings to what you’ll have post quitting, see if you can manage and save. I assume your firm doesn’t have long term sickness insurance?

just a thought - I have a client facing role and wouldn’t just be able to not do the work required as it directly impacts appointments. So the fact that your employer has tolerated you not being able to meet your contracted hours, does show some flexibility?
In any case, you sound very stressed and could be close to burnout. Get yourself signed off sick

I’m really sorry things are so difficult for you OP. You need to go to the doctor and get signed off. I know it doesn’t solve your long term problem, but you are so mired down with everything that you can’t see your short term issue is that you are close to burn out.

Take some sick leave, take a breather, enjoy Christmas with the children and spend some time working out the financial implications.

I know the issues you are facing won’t change but hopefully your capacity to make big decisions will with a bit of space and time

@Hibernatingtilspringyour perspective is fascinating. You said that people would not normally be approved as foster carers if they intended to work full time in a job like OP’s. Are you able to shed any light on how OP might have ended up in this position, having been approved as a kinship carer but nobody discussing with her in advance how it would be almost impossible to continue working? Also, does the placement really not take into account that a higher earner can give the children a better life?

Please please please find a proper employment lawyer.

Ask the LA how you working and doing all the ongoing training etc was expected to be managed when the planning for the placement was done. They must have considered that? What does it say? Point out that they are setting you up to fail and they do not want the placement to break down.

Also if SGO is not on the cards is that because the children returning to parents is expected? You don't have to answer of course but just consider for yourself how will you be fixed if you leave the job market now then in a few years time the children have gone back? You need to think about yourself in the long term as well as how things are now. If these DC aren't expected to stay with you ongoing you could really be left in trouble with no job, no FC income, less pension and a hole in your CV

OP, I think you are getting a really hard time from people hear who don’t understand your reality.

You have done an incredible thing for your family.
The current reality is that yes you are probably right, a senior role with an inflexible employer is not going to be sustainable for you. You are going to burn yourself out and be in a worse place emotionally to care for the children who need you. You can’t reduce the number of meetings and you can’t force your employer to be flexible.

I wonder if maybe you need permission to feel like it’s ok to walk away from a career you’ve worked hard for. It is absolutely ok OP - because the children you love need you, and it’s ok for that to be the priority.

In your shoes, I would make the priority written communication with the LA about what financial package they will support you with when you stop work. Seek support and advice from Kinship or the Family Rights Group.
I really wouldn’t go nuclear with the LA like some are suggesting - you are going to have to continue working with them for the next 16 years potentially.

@JeannetteBlue fair enough, and the other very frustrating part is that advocates are usually only available to adults on a disability basis (ie under community care act) and the remit is very small, eg they'll help someone communicate but don't argue their case, or have they knowledge to do so. I have so many parents who would benefit from an advocate attending with them but there is no provision outside of that statutory duty (at least in the LAs I've worked in). Though yeah, the foster carers input is important and not something that can be replaced. Foster carers have a supervising social worker who should attend meetings (not always, but usually more si for kinship and newer carers) and could attend in their place occasionally, or the social worker can hold a split meeting and talk to the FC on a visit, but that's meant to be an exception rather than the rule.

Fair enough. I work in social services but not in fostering, so I wasn't sure if an advocate might be useful here. Thank you for explaining that unfortunately they wouldn't be. I do think it might help to have someone on your side though? Op sounds very isolated and under a lot of pressure...

I think maybe even a few meetings being attended by someone else relevant would have been helpful, but if the requirements of being a level 2 foster carer are this high, and there's no other way she can keep the children, (eg SGO) and she absolutely does not want to lose them to another placement, all of which are understandable, then it sounds like either her work needs to be truly flexible or she needs to quit and get a new job.

@JeannetteBlue an advocate is someone who can help am individual put their point across, eg if they struggled in meetings. They couldn't attend in replacement of a foster carer, at least not on a routine basis. The foster carer is the expert on the children and needs to be there to share information and be involved in the decision making (no point something being suggested and agreed in a meeting and later finding the foster carer disagrees) The meetings for children in foster care have a specific purpose, social services aren't inviting people for presenteeism for the sake of it.
Sorry I'm not trying to put barriers in the way, just that a lot of the posts seem to suggest that SS are making the OP jump through hoops to tick a box, whilst it may be bureaucratic at times there is a reason for what they're doing.

Have you got the option of a family Advocate?
I get that SS want you at all the meetings but if you had someone to help with this that was allowed, it would greatly reduce the strain on you.
If not, then a new job is likely what you'll need to do, or quit for a bit. You have done amazing for your family and I'm sorry you're being put in this position.

First things first, OP: Phone in sick on Monday and get a GP appointment and ask to be signed off for a month. You’re exhausted and stressed to the eyeballs.

Give yourself a week off out of that month. You don’t need to sort anything immediately.

At the end of that, model some options. Option 1 is giving up work. What would the impact be on a) the children and b) on you? Don’t forget your long term prospects/pension etc. What about supporting the children in the future? What about your house? Is there a point in the future when things might realistically be easier? Is it when the 2 year old starts school? Is it if the SGO gets granted? Could you get back into the work you currently do after a break of say 5 years?

Option 2 is looking for a part-time job. Think about what/where/how many hours etc. What level of salary would you need?

Option 3 is getting a lawyer/ACAS involved with your current employer. What reasonable adjustments would actually help? Is it to tide you over a few years or would you need them for a lot longer?

Good luck! You’re doing an amazing thing for your kids and I really hope it works out for you.

Op, if you still have some emotional strength left, I would first go on sick leave. During the sick leave, I would see an employment lawyer, get them to help you request sabbatical leave. Sometimes it is about the words you use. Employment lawyer should help you with that.

You sound overwhelmed and stressed in this impossible situation. You also sound like a strong and amazing aunt who loves the children she is raising. Well done for managing so well for so long. You done more than a lot of people would have managed to do.

@OldMaaa so your suggestion would be that people attempt to do two full time jobs at the same time? As that's what the OP is trying to do.
Most parents have a point in their career that they have to take a step back - taking a job that is less demanding, or part time. That's what the OP would be expected to do, not because they are forcing her but because they can't make up a solution that doesn't exist. They can't 'be flexible' because the statutory demands of fostering are based on the children's needs. The cost of any flexibility - by opting out of parts of fostering - would be on the children, and to a lesser degree on the OP, by leaving her without support. Social services won't make that compromise because it would be comprising the children's care.

As I've mentioned there are other legal routes that aren't fostering and aren't as intensive and the OP has said there are reasons they aren't an option, and presumably she wants to keep that private which is fair enough. The OP could tell social services that she can't commit long term because of her job and they would have to find somewhere else for the children to go, she doesn't want to do that, she is committed to the children. So there is a choice, albeit not an easy one to make, if she really didn't want to do this. But they can't and won't allow someone to be a foster carer and not meet the standards and expectations of a foster carer. They are paying the OP as a foster carer, though I appreciate it isn't a replacement wage, it's still a fair amount of money - in my area the combined amount for carer and child is around £350 per week per child for a young child. The reason that social services pay kinship carers fostering is in recognition that it is essentially a job, an extremely tough one, and that people aren't able to work the hours they would do if they weren't fostering.

The fact that the OPs employer won't allow her any flexibility as a parent/carer is really problematic, and unusual. Employers have a responsibility to consider family friendly working and by refusing part time or to go for a less demanding role, I really do think she may have a case for discrimination. Most employers can find some way to do it even with 'business need', even the emergency services allow part time contracts!

"It isn't because social services want to push people into poverty" - but surely that's the reality in situations like this, given the lack of flexibility you describe where foster carers are essentially being forced to quit their jobs. What's the solution? The reality of the OP quits her job sounds potentially quite dire.

I agree with those saying get signed off work to at least get some breathing space from one of the pressures that you are under. Take the time away from work to focus on a longer term plan, look properly at the financial implications of quitting your current job, and get employment advice from a lawyer regarding your employer being so inflexible.

I hope you can find a way forwards. You seem totally overwhelmed and something has got to give. Thinking of you.

I thought it would be apparent from my post, I work in the field too - currently I manage a permanence team (children in care) and have previously worked as a social worker in the same, as well as as supervising social worker (assessing and supervising foster carers, including kinship)

There is more fostering training to do in the first year as there is foundational training, but foster carers are reviewed at panel every year and are expected to show that they are continuing to learn - the training requirement reduces but doesn't go away. They have to be available for regular supervision, that doesn't change, and the frequency would be led more by the children's needs and how much support the carer needs, not by how long they have been placed. Same with the child's reviews, care planning meetings, PEP meetings, childs social worker visits. It is a lot. Even if things are settled and can be reduced to the statutory minimum, it's a lot. And that's before we think about the actual caring role - if you think about it, it would be very unusual for a single parent of three children this age to be in a full time senior corporate job, and certainly not without a lot of help. As has been mentioned on the thread, children have been through trauma need more time and attention than most children, and the support usually can't be delegated out, because the children need their primary care giver. They are likely to need more appointments and services than other children.

I wouldn't expect anyone who hasn't fostered to know the ins and outs, just that I felt telling someone who has clearly been incredibly strong, and at risk of burning out, that they just need to 'lay down the law' with social services isn't helpful - it implies that they're in this situation because they're too soft, and that's really not the case. It could actually risk the placement eventually, if social services deem the OP isn't committed, and she's been very clear she doesn't want to lose the children to non related foster carers.

I know the situation is different but if someone were applying to be a foster carer (in a planned way rather than by circumstance as with kinship) they would be very unlikely to be approved if they were a single carer working full time, unless they had an unusually flexible job. It isn't because social services want to push people into poverty, it's because we know it's simply not sustainable and we don't want childrens placements to break down and them be moved again. I do know a handful of single kinship carers who work full time, but it's only possible because they essentially share the care with a extended family, eg in a situation where no one was able to commit fully but the family pulled together and kids are with an aunt, but grandad agreed from the off he'd do the school pick ups, or where someone works shifts and the kids have three nights a week at a different family members.

@SparklyLimeHair re being signed off, it would buy you some time - paid time - and hopefully give you a bit of headspace before making any major decisions. As much as I can understand wanting to just give notice tomorrow, you risk replacing one set of problems with another, eg if you've not had chance to work out the financials.

There are enough social workers and foster carers on the thread who have said that the amount of meetings the OP is having to have are too much and that they will calm down at some point. So with that in mind, I don't think my comment is dismissive of the requirements of foster caring.