to be fusked off with people's perception of children in care?

[LoopyLoops]

Not a thread about a thread, but inspired by one, whereby it was suggested that foster children are a danger to others.

Children in care are vulnerable and by default disadvantaged in many ways. 35% of the population goes to uni, whereas only 3% (1% until recently) of care leavers do.

Attitudes towards fostered children range from sympathetic to contemptuous.

I'll give you an example. Drinking with a neighbour recently, talking about childhood. He stated "but I don't believe you LoopyLoops, you can't have been in care, you own a nice house and are married..." Now, he wasn't saying this in a "wow! aren't you great" way, but in a genuine "I don't believe you, you're making it up" way. So, I gather the assumption is that care leavers will never achieve, won't own their own homes and won't have happy family lives as adults.

AIBU that this pisses me off?

God, do i write essays when I mean to write a paragragh or two I start and can't stop taling once i've started. Hope I make some poeple think though

This thread is so distressing. The system just isn't working, is it? Many thanks to all of you brave enough to share your experiences.

Don't be too distressed, for some it does work. I know that if I hadn't gone into care there is no way I would have achieved the things I have. Although I have had a lot of upset in my life, a lot more than most, I am glad for my upbringing, as it makes us who we are, surely?
:)

Everything makes you who you are -your genes, upbringing, you society, any other experiences you'v had, good or bad... it's so complex and different for everyone, just the totally unanswerable question IMHO :)

Wow this thread has taken a turn that has taken my breath away. I'd like to consider fostering in the future, I'm a leaving care worker so I know what I'd be getting into. I'd like teenagers :) DH and I would need to go a long way in our relationship before that could happen, and we'd have to complete our birth family (and he'd have to give up weed ) but I'm thinking maybe when we're in our forties. We're a mixed race/mixed religion/multiple language speaking couple so we could potentially be very useful, I hope.

Hester, please don't be distressed too much. I'm doing a piece of access to records work with a young man I've worked with since he was 15, he's now nearly 21. He came from chronic neglect along with his three younger sibs, and thanks to wonderful foster carers and a lovely disposition he's now a fabulous, sweet, loving young man with a job, friends and a nice life. If left with his birth family, or fostered by less able carers, his life would undoubtedly be very different. Sadly he's not the rule, but that's not so much the fault of the system as the fault of the families of origin, I truly believe that. The system is not good enough, not enough carers is the biggest problem, but it's constantly being looked at and improved. remember that a lot of posters are talking about their own experiences, which will be 10 years and a lot more ago. There is no fucking way any carers I work with would ever have seperate fridges/food/etc for our children. No way. Any sign of that attitude gets spotted very quickly and dealt with. i've only known one set of FCs be deregistered but it happens.

All you foster carers and adopters are doing a brilliant brilliant thing.

i never got a settling in payment, where'd you get that from?

The problem isn't just not enough carers Eric, its that we don't have enough of the right kind, and also that a lot of the children put in the wrong placements again and again.
Maybe if SS got the recruitment right then we could start off in a better place.

I was part of a team put together by my YW who did speeches and had meetings with the many different people/dpts involved in the care of mental health patients between ages 16-18 ( i got paid to! )
At the time, SS were fighting to get a unit/service and plan put together to help 17yr olds in care access the right mental health for their specialised needs as they were not at that time covered by either the childrens unit or the adults unit.
There was a massive need for this as lots of the teenagers were dumped into Bedsits aged 16, lost contact with SW's and SS and no mental health support at all.
This was about a decade ago, but still thats shocking, how can such an oversight be made like that?
One year without support, or not enough and any good done the years previous were unravelled and they were left to fend for themselves, even when they asked for help, they couldn't get refered to the right people as each service was innappropriate.

A lot of the Bedsits were full of drunks/ druggies and in one case, a girl i knew was forced to live in the bedsit above a family friend who abused her
I used to stay with her when i could and she would still pile her stuff infront of the door from fear.
Oh and yes, she also had to climb up 2 flights of manky stairwell to the communal bathroom and toilet in which the lock was frequently broken.
To me that was like SS were abusing her over and over.

I think maybe SS would benifit from recruiting children/ now adults that were put through the system.

Its easy to ignore the emotional rantings of a " damaged " child/teenager, as they SS hear it constantly.

I think a counsel of articulate adults who have become able to accept their beginnings and can use their experiences objectively in a way to help SS understand and actually understand the position of the child, would get much better results than a board of people that have hardly been through hardship can and do.

< disclaimer, do not know the personal lives of every SW or SS worker am willng to be told otherwise>

wow, sorry for that epic post, i just get caught up on this subject.

Maryz - my Godson (who is adopted) had a car accident as a teenager, more than one person said to my friend (a variation of...) 'Well, you could always contact the birth mother and see if she'll take care of him now, it's not your problem'... we were beyond , and I am sure it was only sheer exhaustion that stopped me from laying them out flat.

TFMD - did you know the photo of DD was arriving or was it a bit of a suprise. Lovely to have, but hard to receive x Are you and DH both black? I bet you are nothing like the 'mental picture' I have of you! LOL

Lilka - your poor girls :( Some children have such a heartbreaking start in life. It sounds like they are both doing very well now though, thanks to your love.

Dolphin - that's lovely that she couldn't tell which of yours are birth/adopted :)

this is so weird - my Mum was the cook in a boys's home in the 80s. I just looked on the facebook site for that kids' home. They all said how it was the happiest years of their childhood. They loved being in the home. I think the German model of being in children's homes is better than being in foster care.

In 16 yrs I have never heard of a £50 (or any other amount) settling in grant.

JJ17 - I do think that a well run children's home can be amazing and help the kids so much, but I do thnik that foster care also can provide something that a home can't. Maybe it depends on the age of the child though, and whether they will cope in a family etc

Yes, that 'settling in payment' idea is bollocks too. And we don't just move children from a foster placement because they complain. It's very complex and always centred around the child's needs.

OTMumma, yes, the system and some working in it leave a lot to be desired. I'm very good at my job but I have colleagues in the same job as me and across the dept, and I do wonder WTF young people make of them. I'm sure they carry out their jobs well but in terms of interpersonal relationships and engaging with young people

Anyway, have you read much about the leaving care act of 2000? It was brought in to address exactly the issues you are talking about. We now have a very clear legal framework which we have to work within. We also have an advisory board of young people who are employed to meet once a fortnight and advise us/senior managers on policy and procedures. We aren't perfect as a team/service but we are very good.

Amazing and sad thread.Yet again it would seem that service uers have the best experiences of the factual side of it all and should be consulted far more heavily.
Eric God that is how i feel in my job,have recently been redeployed and found the dept is staffed by old dinasaurs,one actually said to an angry teen "you are an angry little pickle" i cant believe it,i work in a very down to earth way with some great results and my new boss made a veiled suggestion i was "unprofessional" i asked him to look at my record and sucess rate with young people and then get back to me.I am on mat leav at the mo but am dreding going back tbh.

I could answer you, bumpsoon, but I am going to get my hair cut and buy new boots and don't want to go out stressed and upset and angry. For now I will say that some children have numerous foster placements because SW are not good at their jobs.

I have to say, in response to Boffins' post, that children don't complain about a placement and then automatically get moved . Sometimes you have to stay there, depserately unhappy, until something concrete happens and then they move you .

This was in Lambeth in late 1990s. I think we're talking about the foster parents getting the grant and then spending it on the kids, which in this case meant some new clothes etc for the (teenage) kids concerned.

I do think it was true and I have to say it doesn't surprise me at all given the comings and goings I saw in that school of various children in care at the time.

I agree with people who say our system just doesn't seem to work despite the efforts of many hardworking people. It breaks my heart.

I'd like to pick up on something Kewcumber said. I have no experience of the care system, apart from a feeling that it doesn't provide the best outcomes for children.

What Kewcumber said is that she'd be interested in some kind of programme for people at university, and this is something I'd like to offer. I live close to an excellent university and I'd envisage some sort of system where I could provide somewhere for a student to come and stay and weekends and vacations and be on the other end of the phone for support.

I was the first from my family to go to university but was lucky in that they were able to be very supportive about the process. I can't imagine what it would be like to go it alone.

JJ17 makes a very good point. If you google "Phil Frampton" and he adresses this issue with his campaign to bring back orphanages. I was much more happy in the children's home with my sins than I was separated from them in a foster home. Phil makes that point that it depends on the age of child but from own experience being a teenager and expected to slide seamlessly into another family does not work. I would rather have stayed in the children's home but wasn't given the choice.

I wasn't seperated from my sins! Should read sibs. Took my sins with me unfortunately! Stupid iPhone.

Bare - why dont you call your local CS (LCT) and ask?

Placement in foster care (and residential) break down for a huge number of reasons. We try our hardest to 'hang on' to all the teenagers that come through us. If there is a movement it is usually either because they yp needs a mental health placement or because of bulling (that has got REALLY bad) in the home.

In general the yp we look after (11-18yr olds) are seen as 'unfosterable' and most have been through at least 4 foster placements (many have been with over 20 if they have been LAC for many years). The behaviours are usually too much for a foster career - where as we are a team of many and so not dealing with it 24hours a day...non school attendance, violent, involved in the criminal system, prostitution, self harming, pregnant, sexually abusing others, missing for weeks at a time, on hard drugs ...

Am not at home so will post more later but just wanted to say that there is a lndon based charity which supports young people coming out of the care system & I just went to a presentation by them this week... They sound like they do amazing job & very angry this is left to a charity to do such an essential thing... They are hideously underfunded & can onl help 40 people a year...
Anyway wanted to share more about them & also ask questions about what people might need from a mentor coming out if care 18-20s ish in age, as I want to do this but not sure I am going to be very good at it...

Will post again later

Eric, i was part of that i believe.
In a small way anyway, at the start of it.

There were 5 of us in the group ( in Kent SS ), had weekly meetings, and conferences with HOD type people, sorry it was so long ago i don't remember everything, but it felt good to be asked and to do it.
We as a team used to go away for team buliding exercises etc, it was great, we were all different people, but we worked well together, i believe because we had shared such similar upbringings.

TBH SS dhould focus more on these type of ventures, but they always fling out the funding card etc and as the top dogs don't see any worth in it the pot gets smaller and smaller.

Being part of that team did make me aware of the number of people who worked in SS, who actually wanted to help, but obviously wanted to do it the right way, so were hesitant on exactly what the correct way forward was.
We essentially gave them our POV, so im glad something positive came of it, but we need more of this type of education for SW's not just chucking them in at the deep end.

Thank you loopy great big

chippin it was a picture a friend had taken off facebook and enhanced for me. It was lovely of her and its worth the upset IYSWIM.

No I am not black. I am about as white as can be

Now I am wondering what your mental picture of me is [curious]

:) all. Thanks for all your stories and thoughts.
Hope everyone's well today?