Permanent placement of 6yo with us

[GertyD]

Long story short, my DH's second cousin placed her then 4yo son in foster care in January 2013. She was abusive physically and mentally to him and he will never go back. Social Services are seeking a permanent placement, forever home is the phrase they use. We have been approached by other family members and asked if we will offer this.

We don't know him very well, although we don't consider that a barrier as such, he is local and would continue to attend his local school, 3 miles away.

He is a beautiful child and we could give him the love and stability he needs, and having not done this before, I am as certain as I can be that we are strong enough to deal with the arising issues.

We have a 2yo and 15yo DS already, and I have concerns about how any behaviour issues will impact the younger one.

We wouldn't do this if we didn't feel we could commit to it 100 per cent and don't want to mess the poor child about anymore than he has been.

Has anyone got any experience of introducing an older, child from an abusive background into their family?
I guess I just am looking for reassurance that this could work and tips and advice when dealing with the troubled bits.

Hello, sorry I haven't posted in a long time. I wanted to update when I had something solid to say, iyswim.

The SW went off on long term sick leave, and for a couple of weeks I was dealing with her manager, but there was no progress as they kept saying wait until the SW had come back! Finally, the case was allocated to another social worker, who seems much better.

We started the Schedule 4 assessment last Monday. The original SW had not kept good notes so this new one hadn't a clue about any of it. She came again on Tuesday to ask more questions, she wanted to know everything about us, we were under a microscope for sure, which is good I suppose - just felt a bit raw after. She is returning again next Monday, to give us forms to give to our GP so we can have a medical assessment.

She has not promised anything. She has talked about Special Guardianship, but has also talked about other options, as well as SS keeping responsibility for him. She is keen to go over all options as part of a conference for him, before we all decide which way forward is best. She says if he comes to us, it will likely be December time.

I don't know what the acronym is for a potential foster son, so I am just going to call him Tommy for now. Tommy went to new foster carers last Monday night. This breaks my heart. Whilst the SW was with us she was receiving calls from whoever was trying to place him, and they couldn't find anyone anywhere but he had to be placed that day so they were approaching private fostering organisations. It was really fucking shit knowing he knew he was moving that day, but not knowing where. Both me and DH were in bits for the rest of the week.

I have lots of stuff to read about all the potential placement types we can consider, so will be doing this in preparation for his conference. It is a whole new world. At least things are moving now. They have apologised for what happened, but like I said to her manager, we have all the time in the world, it is Tommy that doesn't.

Oh yes, they have told Tommy we are being assessed and apparently he is very happy and excited about this. I try and see that as a positive, but I worry he is at the stage where he will cling to anything.

Oh Gerty, some positives and some negatives in your post. You are holding up wonderfully under what must be a huge, huge strain. I sincerely hope this will all work out well for Tommy. It breaks my heart to think of him and this complex situation. Whatever happens I am so glad you now seem to have a good social worker, which is great.

Hello all, if you are still reading then I will update.
Tommy remains with the foster carer, but we are now having unsupervised contact.
We went through the schedule 4 assessment, and have flown through the SGO assessment.
I have put my foot down and said we want to do a kinship placement first - for 12 months and then review. I have said we want that crucial support in place, when it is most needed.
They want us to move to a 4 bed house so Tommy has his own room, but we live in a pricey area, and can't afford it.
They haven't agreed anything yet, but rereading all the responses above certainly helps now I know what they mean.
Tommy is showing some behavioural issues, he hit a child at school, smashed up his bedroom, hit his foster dad with a stick after his foster dad forgot he has the light on at night, and called his foster mum a fucking bitch. These incidents all occurred after his dad came back on the scene and disappeared again, so that is something that will need strong management. Why do SS let parents do that? We were told about these incidents with gravity, but it is nothing more than we expected and thought he would have been demonstrating these behaviours more than he has been.
He needs proper therapy, and we are insisting on that.
Still bloody scared though!
The contacts go well, and he gets on with our other sons. He is protective of our youngest, runs about after him making sure he doesn't fall down the stairs, or trip, or hurt himself on imagined dangers, which is kinda cute but not sure if that will last. He shows us affection and plays nicely, he is mad obsessed with Dr Who, and chatters about it for hours.

They intend to place him with us by Christmas, which is rapidly approaching.

Hi There,
I have only just spotted your thread and just wanted to message you as we were in quite a similar situation, We ended up taking on DHs sisters (sister in law) little boy (after he spent 2 years unfortunately in FC). We sadly didn't know the ins and outs of her situation, and believed she was going to change her ways etc, and she would get him back. This didn't happen, so like your little one, he was going to be placed up for adoption. He was already 4 years at the time. We decided to go ahead and apply for SGO. We have no birth children yet, but this is something we will hope for in the future, and this has never seemed to be a problem from SSs perspective, so I should imagine they would be ok with you having a younger child.

We were also aware that they 'may' have been families out there suited to care for him, but we really couldn't see him be placed up for adoption, and the possibility of him being stuck in FC for even longer.

We are a year into his placement with us, and we have actually decided to go for adoption as opposed to SGO. He hasn't seen birth mum since he was 2, we feel it is best for him in the long run.

We have been 'family fostering' him until the adoption goes through, and like you have said you will have at least 12 months so you get the support you need, I definitely agree this would be best, it was for us, as we (I) really struggled especially in the 1st few month. The support has been a god send, we really needed it, and reading your posts your boy sounds as though he may need that support perhaps therapy too, it is best to leave those doors open I think to gain that support.

We didn't have birth children, so you are already more prepared than we were, we did find that because we were 'family fostering' him however, we got absolutely no training at all, we didn't receive the basic training programs or anything which usual adopters receive, so I would push for this if you are in a similar situation.

Anyway, I just thought I'd post from a kind of similar situation, I hope all goes well and he is settled with you soon :)

Gerty - thanks for posting and updating us. I really hope it all goes well. Post here if you need support. We do lots of handholding on this board.