Can children be fostered if mum is in hospital?

[EachandEveryone]

The whole things a mess and the story is totally outing so i’ll Keep it simple.

DN has a chaotic lifestyle although she would never admit it. Four dc and one on the way. She moved them all to a town miles away. Aged 8 plus. Emergency admission to another city and will have to stay there until Xmas. She’s nc with everyone in the family. Can anyone advise? As far as we know the dc are with her friend for now. If SS get involved will they be from the town she’s in or the town the kids are? We want to support dn she must be really scared. I have no clue where to start. Would the hospital give us info over the phone? Her mum —my sister— works full time and has young ones still at home.

The hospital will tell you nothing, and nor should they. As your DN has a right to confidentiality. Even more so if she's NC with the family. I would think I that it will be social care from the area DN lives that will be involved if necessary. However if the friend is happy having the kids they probably won't get involved.

The hospital won't tell you anything - but you could write her a letter and send a copy to each hospital in the area - you might get lucky and she will receive it. I would though be very careful to say that you don't know where she is and are trying multiple hospitals on the off chance she is there. If she is NC she may well panic if she doesn't want to be located.

Yeah i didnt think they would. Its more like nc when it suits her. For example the drama is everywhere on fb but the minute anyone asks whos got the dc the subject gets changed. I actually dont think shes aware that this is going to be a very long stay like, months.

Her mum is allowed to get information from the ward staff. Is it ok for het to mention her chaotic lifestyle and untreated MH issues? Is there anyway they could be moved schools for afew months and fostered within the family, does that happen?

They generally try to avoid moving schools as it’s another upheaval that the children don’t need. Fostering within the family does happen but it tends to be a mutual agreement between family without SS getting involved. It would not be done without the express permission of the parent regardless of some chaos in her life. To foster within family without the permission of the mother would have to be very serious concerns

I think her mum needs to flag it up to the hospital if she is able to.