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Original poster

Does anyone know about fostering / adoption? How likely is this to happen?

30 replies

Yellowlilly · 17/09/2021 15:35

A baby is placed with a foster parent. The baby is going to be adopted. The birth mum is only 14 and wants nothing to do with her child.

The birth mum is then taken into care and is placed with the same foster parent as the one fostering her baby.

Would this ever actually happen?

OP posts:
PurpleDaisies · 17/09/2021 15:36

It sounds pretty unlikely.

Is this the plot of a novel?

Original poster
Yellowlilly · 17/09/2021 15:43

Well yes - but it’s supposed to be a memoir. I’m inclined to think it’s nonsense, though.

OP posts:
NuffSaidSam · 17/09/2021 15:46

Currently, in the UK I think absolutely not.

But in another country or another time, I don't know. Crazier things have happened.

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about this subject:

Families
Original poster
Yellowlilly · 17/09/2021 15:47

It’s set in the U.K. recently though.

OP posts:
RestingPandaFace · 17/09/2021 15:48

There are specific mother and baby foster placements.

PurpleDaisies · 17/09/2021 15:48

Which book is it?

DancinAtTheDisco · 17/09/2021 15:48

Can you be sure it wasn't a mother and baby foster placement?

CrumbsThatsQuick · 17/09/2021 15:48

In a fictional world

Iy might come about if the Mum was possibly considering changing her mind and was placed in a mother and baby foster situation?

What type of memoir?

BertieBotts · 17/09/2021 15:49

Is this one of those Cathy glass ones? :o

I always wonder how much of those are fact and how much fiction.

CloseYourEyesAndSee · 17/09/2021 15:50

Of course not Shock
Believe it or not social workers do talk to each other when foster placements are matched and the chance of a mum being placed alongside her baby are zero.

Original poster
Yellowlilly · 17/09/2021 15:57

It was Cathy Glass!

I feel a bit odd about it though. It is one thing to tweak the truth to protect identities but they are written as true life and this book is fairly reliant on this happening as a plot device.

OP posts:
VimFuego101 · 17/09/2021 15:57

It wouldn't happen accidentally, but mother and baby placements exist, where they're both intentionally placed together.

Original poster
Yellowlilly · 17/09/2021 15:57

What makes you think I wouldn’t believe it?

It wasn’t a random placement according to the book anyway.

OP posts:
Original poster
Yellowlilly · 17/09/2021 15:58

It wasn’t a mother and baby placement. The mother wanted nothing to do with her baby and she was being put forward for adoption.

OP posts:
NoddingTulip · 17/09/2021 16:10

Highly unlikely. If there are a shortage of Foster carers in the area then most likely one if them would be placed out of area. A friend of mine is a Foster carer and had a teen stay with her once who had had a baby that was being placed for adoption at her request (teen told me this herself so no confidentiality broken on friends half). There were no suitable carers in her area so she had been placed out of county with my friend. She was a little older though and stayed fir about 8mths before moving onto the next stage to prepare her for living independently.

2bazookas · 17/09/2021 16:20

. A very young mother and her baby might both be placed with a foster family pending some other decision making by SW.

  Perhaps SW feels that with a little encouragement and  support  she might change her mind and  decide  to keep her baby .
Antinerak · 17/09/2021 16:23

They wouldn't intentionally be placed together unless it was a mother and baby home- which doesn't line up with the story. They would be kept apart to keep each other safe. There are plenty of places around the country, they would be sent to seperate homes.

Jellycatspyjamas · 17/09/2021 16:25

No, if the birth mum didn’t want to parent the baby they wouldn’t be placed together. Are you saying the baby was placed first, then the 14 year old placed some time later and the 14 year old didn’t know the baby placed was her child? And the foster carers didn’t know either? That just wouldn’t happen.

Original poster
Yellowlilly · 17/09/2021 16:27

Not quite. The baby was placed first and then the mother afterwards but the mother aware it is her child (but shows no interest in.)

OP posts:
spooney21 · 17/09/2021 16:44

I worked in fostering and adoption many years ago. There are mother and baby foster placements but the idea is that the mother is supported and assessed to see if she is capable of parenting the child. I have not heard of a mother being placed with a baby if the mother doesn't want to parent. I have known mothers to show no interest in the baby following placement and the foster carer then takes over 100% of the baby's care. Due to lack of placements sometimes there is no option only for the mother to remain in the same placement until another is found.

PuppyMonkey · 17/09/2021 16:46

Babies in foster care would normally have several supervised contact sessions per week with the birth parent/s. So your fictional baby would already theoretically be seeing their theoretical 14 year old mum?

If the mum wanted nothing more to do with the baby, chances are this would be flagged up by her not attending the contact sessions.

So the chances of a foster placement team saying “yay, let’s place birth mum in the same home as baby” are vanishingly slim.

The social worker wouldn’t agree to it. The court wouldn’t agree to it.

Even if they were having a mad day and agreed to it, Chances are the foster carers haven’t got room to accommodate a 14 year old as well.

Chances are the foster carers would say “ no thanks we don’t want to care for the 14 year old mum too as that would make our home life quite difficult.”

Chances are you’ll have to go back to the drawing board OP.Grin

Simonjt · 17/09/2021 16:49

In the UK no, mother and baby placements only happen where the mum wants to parent and retain parental responsibility. Both birth parents would however have regular access to the baby (if they wish) until their goodbye contact before the baby starts being introduced to their intended parents.

BertieBotts · 17/09/2021 17:04

It was a few years ago though I think that story. I went through and worked out the rough timings from things that she mentions and I think Adrian would be in his mid to late 30s now, so if he's still at infant school then the story is set in the early 90s.

I don't know a whole lot about how foster placements are chosen but the book seemed to suggest it was a "no room at any inn" situation. I don't know if it was done like that back then? Would they have moved out of area?

BertieBotts · 17/09/2021 17:14

But I get the distinct impression while there is some basis in real workings of the foster system and I think she must have actually been a foster carer, a lot of the stories are wish fulfilment and what she wishes could have happened. For example (spoiler alert) there's a story about a boy with autism and the dad is totally detached from him and he's on the verge of being recommended for adoption but then the dad comes in to Cathy's house and discloses a load of painful childhood experience and is magically healed by her understanding kind nature, and suddenly he accepts his son and they all live happily ever after.

So probably she has written about her experience of fostering babies and her experience of fostering a young mum and has merged this into "What would happen if mum and baby were accidentally placed together?"

There's no way you could write such a detailed memoir about someone else so they must be several stories merged and/or details changed.

Also in the one where she writes about her adopted daughter's back story there are loads of details she's obviously made up/filled in the gaps because there's nobody who could have told her, and a particular part which hinges on a text message even though mobile phones weren't commonplace and 100% would not have been a posession of a young homeless woman at the time the story is set (based on how old her daughter is in the later books compared to the present day).

I have thought about this too much Blush They are my comfort reads...

JollyAndBright · 17/09/2021 17:26

I have a close friend who is a foster parent, she prefers little ones but is open to takes any age for any length of time. She is a bloody saint and I’ve literally seen her work miracles with the children placed in her care over the years.

She has had several babies from birth,
She has also had two mother and baby placements although it’s not something she would normally do, they were both unusual circumstances.

One of which was a situation similar to the one you described.
Newborn of a teenage mother (although not as young) who wanted nothing to do with the baby.

The baby way placed with my friend and two months later the mother came to live with her too. BUT it was because the mother changed her mind and wanted to parent the baby, she was only placed with my friend because she wanted to be with the baby.
I’m pretty sure they would never place them together otherwise.

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