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

I also think that ultimately you will probably need to move to another organisation. However, make them pay you off. That’s why you need an employment lawyer.

Social Services manage to arrange meetings to accommodate their various schedules, so they can certainly take your schedules into account also. I'd suggest that you give them a list of dates and times you can do over the next month or so and say that all meetings are going to have to fit into that schedule if they want you to be there. I'm sure they'll discover they can manage it.

Posters are being really helpful in trying to find practical solutions e.g. nanny, demanding more support from work etc.

However.... I don't have foster kids but I do have two with additional support needs. The burden isn't only a practical one but also a hugely emotionally draining one. I am constantly fire fighting, and as services are all oversubscribed there is very little flexibility with appointments. It is utterly exhausting.

As a single parent I've had to take a massive step back from work. I now do 2.5 days a week in a new job at a significantly lower level. 2.5 days sounds tiny but it can be a struggle fitting all the appointments and calls etc in, especially as there are issues with kids sleep etc that impact upon my available time. It only works because my employer is very flexible and understanding.

My advice would be that an unsupportive organisation will not work longer term. Although the initial flurry of training and appointment will die down it is highly likely that new issues will fill that gap. Foster children will likely come with trauma, and statistically much more likely to jave other additional support needs. The last thing you want to do is burn out entirely.

You need to start being really inflexible with social services. Say no, and simply don’t turn up. What are they realistically going to do? They don’t want to have to find a new placement for three siblings. You are clearly the best option if you have the money and time to look after them other than the SS stuff. Don’t go to training if it’s on a working day, say it needs to be arranged for a time you can do it. Don’t go to the SS meeting, offer a zoom call at a convenient time. Medical appointments for the children yes, but absolutely drop everything else.

So you’re potentially going to end up losing your house and what, downsizing or moving to rented? Agree this is the critical point with SS - do they want these kids to lose their secure base?

I’m sorry I havent read every post.

Please get a senior employment lawyer asap to fight your corner. The only thing is that you will need to know what you want as an outcome. It sounds like your ideal outcome would be part time working/job share in your current employment. Fine. In the meantime, work the hours you can. But talk to a lawyer today.

OP I know a kinship carer to 2 children who works 5 days a week as a teacher and is not having all these issues. SS have just got you over a barrel and aren't bothered on making things work for you as long as you're prepared just to keep up the status quo.

Do you know how hard it would be for them to keep these kids together and place they somewhere else? Do you know how much that would cost them?

You need to call their bluff you need to tell them that it is not possible for you to carry on as you are and that they need work with you or they will have to find another placement for the three children because they are breaking this placement down. If they want you to attend all this training and these meetings then they need to make it possible. They're taking the piss OP and they will because it's cheaper and easier for them.

Social services. Letting kids die in horrific ways at the hands of animals (poor Star Hobson for just one of many examples)... and then fucking up the lives of those who are just trying to do the right thing. They get stuck in an awful system, which overcompensates in totally the wrong way and in the wrong cases.

Your employer sounds awful too.

I'm so sorry Op. I think you should fight back, but I understand that you are worried about losing the kids. And they are your priority. It is a really difficult decision. I think you are between a rock and a hard place.

You are doing an amazing thing. You must be knackered so it is difficult to think straight.

I hope you can find a way forward.

Do not ask them what other support they can offer if any. Thats just asking for them to say none. Go in there with the numbers worked out of what you need to live your current lifestyle for the next however many years. If you want to give up your job - and I think you do you just won't be straight about it here for some reason- go in and tell the LA you'll resign and do all their FC training and meetings etc if they agree in writing to replace your current salary for the next x years and then award FC allowance after that til youngest DC is 18. Or ask them to pay a lump sum off your mortgage. Or whatever you'd need to live your current lifestyle.

Don't ask them want they are willing to spend, they want to spend as close to nothing as they can. Tell them what you want in return for resigning, or else that you're not doing any more training or meetings except at times convenient to you. Find your backbone.

Harshly, your employer doesn't have to facilitate your lifestyle. They employ you to do a job. It's the LA who have to give because your employer is your employer, it's not a charity which exists to fund you to do stuff other than the work they pay you to do.

Stop looking for your employer to fix this, it's for the LA to do that, and you seem unwilling to play hard ball with them so here we are. Your employer don't have to pay you to do FC training, or go to social care meetings, what they want you to do is the job they pay you for. You are having a row with the wrong people.

Don’t resign. Make your employer sack you. Don’t make it easy for them. Politely push back with SS when you really need to. Don’t quit. Don’t give in to SS. Just keep plugging away. They won’t be able to find someone else for 3 children. Just keep going. Women are conditioned to try to make life easier for other people. Don’t quit to make your employer heave a sigh of relief. Just keep going.

I meant if you gave up your job.
Also get in touch with the IRO...the independent reviewing officer who chairs the LAC reviews. They're there to monitor the placement so tell them without further financial support this placement is in jeopardy of not being sustainable.

I've seen LAs pay out A LOT of money when challenged robustly.

Also look up the Family Rights Group online.

They can't make you. They really can't. What do you think will happen if you don't do it?

I get adoption allowance paid at the same level as the maximum foster carers payment. I've never done a speck of FC training. Obviously I did adopter training but as I said up thread that was 4 one day a week group training days, then several months of personal 1-1 home study done to fit in around my work. It was also 15 years ago. If they can agree that for me they can do similar for you.

You are not a career FC. You have already had these children placed with you for a year. Like fuck would I be going on ongoing FC training at that point,it's ridiculous. Find your back bone with the LA, they need you. They need you capable of caring for these children not run ragged by pointless training as well as everything else you have to do to parent traumatised children.

I'm starting to think you actually want to leave your job and you just want everyone here to tell you you have to, because you're not engaging with anyone who says stand up to the LA. As in don't ask them if you can stop the training, tell them you're stopping it, and the meetings set when you're at work. Tell them, don't ask them.

Can you take a sabbatical? I took a one year sabbatical from my global company. I did not get paid but I got my significant car allowance which helped support me. Hopefully if you can then it gives you a year to work stuff out.

I don't see how anyone could take on kinship foster care with all the work time commitments, it seems self defeating if the only way to keep kids out of the "system" is to force the kinship carer out of work. I don't think SS are being at all helpful here.