OMG - social workers have asked us to consider a long term placement til adulthood

[Confidentialnamechanger]

My brains gone a bit mush. How do you say yes to becoming someone's main carer for 9 years.

What should I consider. ?? It's just so huge.

Good point Califrau, has the child been in and out of care?

yes they have been in care for 4 years already, there are no disabilities or special needs involved

Hi hun, well i think its lovley that youve been asked.

Me personally, as a soon to be foster carer with no birth children would not turn the placement down just because you want to have children of your own as they will be an addition to your family.

Im confident that if you decide to go for it and 6 months-2 years down the line it starts to get difficult than they would help you. And if all help fails than they would remove the child. (You could be the nicest couple/person out there, but if you and a child dont gel there is nothing to feel guilty about)

parenthood is not so easy anyway, let alone a child with ''baggage'' (that word sounds a bit wrong but hope you know what I mean) if you plan on fostering in the future and they say this child has to be placed with no other children in placement, am i right in thinking you get paid more.??

Because as much as we dont like talking about money, finance is always very important if your going to give the child the best opportunity/Stability anyway..

Take your time and talk it over with your partner. Maybe do a list of pros and cons..

Pros being the child will be yours

cons being You wont get to see other placements through for the next 9 years

either way there is no wrong answer, it has to be for you and your partner...

Hope you figure it out hunni

Donna x

I can see why the SW's are reluctant for a trial before the placement starts, because if the child has been severely disrupted before it could well be that any 'short term trial' might throw up problems of the child feeling that it's just one more move, etc - they might not be able to emotionally invest in it which would make settling and bonding far more difficult.

However I would want them to have a REALLY clear and well thought out plan of contact for you and the child over the next weeks/months so that you can get to know each other a bit and crucially get to know the birth family/contact dynamics so that you know whether you can cope with all that being a feature of your lives till the child is ready to leave you - not necessarily the next 9 years, is it - could be much later, if they're really 'one of the family'.

I have worked with kids who've been long term fostered and where the placement has lasted it's been SO fantastic - good luck.

as someone else said, this is adoption except for the fact that you wont have parental rights and you will have financial support

as i understand it, you and you dh/dp are not looking for a permenant placement, just short term. i guess you are fairly young eg 20s or early 30s???? and that you have no parenting or fostering experience???

whatever SS have told you it is IMPOSSIBLE for a 9yo child who has been in care for 4 years to have no special needs. you don't even have an idea what these are now, let alone what they might be in teenage years.

you say this child needs to be an only child. so either they are a perpetrator or they have a high level of needs. how will that fit in with your plans when you decide to have a baby?

what if one or both of you decide to get a job outside the home ?? you wont be able to do that.

I'm sorry to rain on your parade but i think you would be absolutely CRAZY to even think of saying yes.

We ahve friends who do long term fostering and have had many children over the years - it is both hard work and very rewarding.

Many of their children have special needs but they say taht after the frst eyar things get easier as the child settles in to family life and regular contact with the birth family can be a good thing.

I think you need to know a lot about the child - as if you were adopting as the impact on you as a family wil be similar. Short term is different to long term - we're in process of adopting a family having done short term fostering previously.

Hope it works out for you all

mBop

Kristina, we are not particularly young (37) and my dh works outside the home fulltime already (me part time). We have had short term 4 times.

This child needs to be an only child for reasons nothing to do with them (they can't be homed with their siblings). I'm being deliberately circumspect as I am keeping everything confidential

Thanks for the advice so far

so in fact they are just being placed seperately from their sibling - they dont need to always be an only child?? i see, thats less worrying!

i understand completely about confidentality and I'm not asking you to say anything about the child.

i assumed that you were younger as you said that you had " thought about having your own child at some point".

my concern is still that this is a RADICAL change of plan for your family and you woudl need to think through all the implications of this now. Before you find out more about teh child and your heart beginsg to rule your head

later you will want to see the child's Form E and also meet their current Fc. the info you get from the child's Sw may be very limited - remember they probably only see the child for an hour a week. Depends how good the worker is really. Poor workers will ignore the info they get from Fc, teachers and therapists if it doesnt match up with what they see and will try to "sell" you an unrealistic picture of the child.

A good one will be able to integrate a fuller picture of the child and their needs and what kind of family might be able to meet these

It's not adoption, it's permanent fostercare which is a different thing - I've done both.

Don't be afraid to say no if that is what your gut is telling you. But I have done it - in fact I was originally approved to do respite care only and ended up switching to permanent after just 6 months.

If you do decide to go ahead then do think clearly now - this is the time when the LA need you more than you need them. So if you are going to go ahead with this, think about all the things you may need for this child in the future and get an agreement on the provision of those things now.

Do you need respite?

How will the contact work, will you have to be supervising it or will someone else need to be involved in that, how flexible will it be, will it prevent you from doing things like having family holidays together (that would be a dealbreaker for me; contact HAS to fit around our family life, not our family life be squeezed around contact)? What happens if relationships between the family and yourself break down, who will do the transporting, etc.?

Is the child accomodated under sec20 or is there a care order in place? (you don't have to answer any of these questions by the way, I'm listing the ones I ask, not expecting you to respond to them) If Sec 20 then how will you handle living with a child whose parents have the right to undermine everything you try to do? If care order then what are the reasons and is your family safe? What are the birth parents' views on the need for fostercare? Why is the child separated from siblings and are there implications in that for other children the child may meet?

Is the child likely to be having problems at school, does the child access CAMHS, is the LA going to put pressure on you to take out SGO or RO?

Does the child have challenging behaviour, does anyone else think the child has challenging behaviour (having had one child where SW said "oh no problems" but it then transpired 9 year old had a habit of being extremely violent and had possibly been abused by a visitor to the family house). Can you meet with school staff, with whoever is presently caring for the chld, with the child's doctor and anyone else significant to the child?

Again - please don't feel you need to answer these questions (and I do understand confidentiality and I'm not trying to undermine it), just these are the questions I ask before accepting a placement myself.

My long term placement came up quite suddenly like this, and I had to make a decision based just on the Form E (you should see that form E before making decisions; there's a lot of info not on it but there's quite a bit that is on it too) before I got to meet the child, child moved in 4 weeks later and we had a very happy life together (although it wasn't without its problems).

That's all extremely helpful and has given me lots of questions to ask

Thank-you very much.

I coulndt agree more with NYON about getting an agreement UP FRONT from teh LA on what you need. If you take teh child without having these things in writing they will almost definately renege on it later

they will also try to say that its too early to asses these needs now and they will wait til the child is settled with you. if the child has been in care for 4 years they have had plenty time.

hows it going, confidentialnamechanger?

yeh, would love to find out what you decided and why

What did you decide?