to think Rotherham council have lost the plot over UKIP foster-carers?

[londonone]

bbc

I really really hope there is more to this than is being reported, otherwise I am utterly speechless.

Being in foster care is nothing like living in a residential unit. Nothing!

The whole thing is bloody crazy and I expect it will be overturned but the message has been sent out about UKIP. It is a political decision designed to scare people away from UKIP.

I want to know exactly who it is that decides what is an acceptable POV. Can we elect these paragons?

If only!

To point one or two nit?

Two.

OK I would agree that it would be good to have a democratic input into who decides what's acceptable. Not sure our high level 5 yearly bun fight is granular enough though. Someone in government ought to look into Family Courts and general social worker behaviour as there is much scope for abuse of power shielded by confidentiality.

There was an interesting programme on R4 Today where the comedian Hardeep Singh Koli interviewed some foster parents*. This couple care for children with significant medical needs or disability. They've been doing it for decades, have adopted a couple of children as well as having their own three.

They commented wryly about having had young, inexperienced social workers straight out of university who have said some unfortunate things, such as telling them 'you are only childminders'. They also described how difficult it is to get out of the house, not only because two of their children are in wheelchairs and they have a large family, but mainly because people stare so much, it's very uncomfortable. Extremely sad.

Most of that is off-topic, but the point about some social workers being a bit dim and very rude is relevant to this discussion, I think. It'll be on iPlayer if anyone wants to look it up. *Foster parents because the members of their family who were interviewed DO see them as parents - many of the placements for children with significant needs are long-term.

edam,

how can you say some social workers are dim, they have degrees!!!

edam, I have no problem with the term foster parents in situations like the one you describe: long term placements where the children truly have become part of the family.

In short term placements, I think it is disrespectful to both the birth family and the children to use the term. And inaccurate too. Which doesn't make 'childminder' an acceptable description either: what foster carers do is far more taxing and skilled than that.

Stupid inexperienced social workers can indeed do a lot of harm. As I have learned to my cost.

Being serious, a degree in social work does not make you Einstein. (Nor do most qualifications, to be honest, especially not mine.) I'm sure there are plenty of bright, caring, experienced social workers out there doing their level best but there will also be others who are not. And then there's the shit floating to the top phenomenon - sometimes the good social workers (or nurses, or teachers, or whatever) stay at the level where they actually do social work or nursing or teaching, and it's the crap ones who go into management. That may apply to the head of children's services in Rotherham (who may well not be a social worker anyway, it's not always the case).

Devora, entirely fair point about the term 'foster parents' being potentially disrespectful to birth and adoptive families when applied to short-term placements.

I do wonder whether Gove's use of the term does reflect his personal experience though - I don't know anything beyond the fact he was adopted, no idea whether he spent time in foster care back in ye olden days when 'foster parents' was the common term.

utter rot and clichetastic appraisal of sw
sw managers have been front line,they have come up through grades
sw like every job,there's a range and diversity of ability.but everyone reckons they know sw

demented, no one is saying foster care and living in a residential home are alike, but both are part of the care system, fostered children are still considered to be "Looked After".

Talking of political footballs, I note that there is a by election coming up in Rotherham. Who took this case to the newspapers?

I think that when Gove was adopted there must have been far fewer foster carers - certainly official ones. There were more children's homes. Adopted children were far, far more likely to have been relinquished at birth and adopted very quickly. I'll bet foster carers didn't do anywhere as much training and development as they do now, and their role wouldn't have been as tightly defined.

I know I've been very pedantic on this thread about this point. There's no reason why people who have not had much to do with the system should understand how it works. And I certainly mean no disrespect to foster carers, far from it: it is a very, very skilled job to provide loving, sensitive care to someone else's traumatised children. But whatever you think about this case (and I don't accept that UKIP membership should automatically debar you from being a foster carer, though of course there may be more to this case, there so often is) this thread keeps slipping into talking about parental rights, which is absolutely not the issue at stake.

It is very very scary.

Kids in care have the worst outcomes of all the 5 per amputees if every child matters in the U.K but scarily social workers think they are doing a wonderful job....

No fear or favour with children's safeguarding from paedophiles either Christian or Muslim or dogma or other such crap.

Disgraceful.

God amputees being perimeters..

Political allegiances aside. The children have been removed from a loving stable family, is that right.

Yes UKIP is hardly BNP, don't they want England to remain independent without influence of the EU and Brussels

Hence the ame UK independent party

I copied my page 20 post which perfectly sums it up i thought:

Everyone in my estate including all my immigrant neighbours had UKIP leaflets put through their door twice recently. (local election - hope i'm not outing myself here).

The UKIP leaflet states: ''What UKIP will do for you by voting for me... Control immigration that threatens our public services''

I gather from that leaflet that UKIP supporters including the foster parents (a public service) see the immigrant foster children as ''threatening our public services''.

So logically UKIP supporters are unsuitable foster parents for immigrant children.

Latara, we have to control immigration as our social and physical infrastructure cannot cope with more than a certain population. It is not racist to say this.

Do you know in any immigrants latara? What makes you assume they are in favour of further immigration? The ones I know tend to be far more anti-immigration than the non-immigrants.

And the positions are not logically opposed either, for instance if you came here as an immigrant and have always paid taxes, etc., you might be opposed to people say asylum seekers, using public resources, etc.

Or if you came here as a non-English-speaking immigrant from say Asia, and as a result are in low-paid work, IME you are likely to be considerably aggrieved at the large pool of labour arriving from Eastern Europe depressing wages.

Only the most lunatic of hand-wringing socialists would suggest we should have absolutely uncontrolled immigration into what is a very small country. Every sane person is in favour of 'controlling immigration' to one degree or another. There are a billion people in India for example. Given the free choice you would easily find millions willing to come here.

And while immigration does not necessarily threaten public services, clearly it can and does. For instance in a number of parts of the country the majority of babies are born to foreign mothers. E.g. In Newham 77% www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/9508687/Record-number-of-babies-born-to-foreign-born-mothers.html . Or in thousands of schools, the majority of children don't speak English as a first language. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2118846/Children-English-home-language-MINORITY-1-600-school-Britain.html Clearly such numbers 'threaten' public services.

Why is controlling immigration racist?

There are plenty of countries that have strict immigration policies. Japan for example has an extremely homogenous population, almost all Japanese or of Japanese origin. Are they racists? Or what about the Iraqis who are against mass immigration/colonialists to their country? Are they all racists too?

The British were never given a vote on multiculturalism and mass immigration. I am sure there are as many British people who are against forced colonisation of their country as their are Iraqis who are against forced colonisation of their countries. Doesn't make them racist, but pragmatists and nationalists.