To think many people don't understand fostering

[Thefishewife]

There have been a fair few threads about foster children being treated differently with family's to hard or to soft

Aibu to think people don't realise your not a law on to yourself and can't just do what you want some social workers and birth parents are fab and just let you get on meaning to can do as you see fit but some sw and birth parents are a nightmare wanting to control evey aspect of the child from a far even trying to tell you what they want you to feed the children

when your thinking about behavioural management as a foster carer you having to take on board the views of the following people

The child's social worker
Your social worker
The Health visitor
The reviewing officer
The child's guardian
Nursey
gp

And the birth parents
All will have Diffrent views of how things should be done often a plan is made and you the one who actually looks after the child has to try and follow it

Also even for foster carers of older children because your not the legal parent they can always appeal to there sw about any punishment that is given I would imagine most people would find parenting diffcult if Somone else had a Vito over any punishment you dished out

For for example I may take away pocket money from my children but my foster child's sw may not agree with that course of reprimand so you can't do it hence your child and the foster child end up being treated Diffrently is easily done

And on another note the children may need to be treated Diffrently due to therapeutic reasons I am quite a shouty mum usually but we did have one little girl that I absolutely couldn't be this way with she was way to fragile

I would like to think I loved all the children as my own but it saddens me to say I couldn't treat them as my own I simply wasn't allowed to

I had children who were not allowed to attend Cubs and because of there legal status I had to go along with it I had one child who I couldn't take on Hoilday eveyone went to Disney land birth mum would give over the passport to be fair sw tried everything she wouldn't have it in the end my kids went with there dad and I stayed at home with my FC however we ened up having this girl for 4 years and tbh I needed a Hoilday so we put her in respite when we went away I guess it did look like we were dumping her and running off on Hoilday with our own kids to People who didn't know us but what things look like and the reality of getting passports off birth parents or getting to sighn consent forms for clubs or party's when there trying to retain every bit of control is a nightmare

That's what most don't foster it's bloody hard

In a ideal world the sw would just give you the children trust the assments they have done and let you get on not many foster carers experience fostering like that.🙁

Any questions please ask as I am sure myself and all the lovey mumsnet foster carers will be happy to answer

Ada I agree it should be payed and I'm fairly sure that he couldn't work outside the house just as you said.

I agree with you, it's why we didn't foster. They were saying in the meeting that the kids couldn't go for or have sleepovers, could refuse to come on days out with us or anywhere with us and we had to oblige. I didn't like the idea of not being able to treat them as my own so we decided to leave it until our own our older

Thanks so much to all the contributors of this thread. I knew this was a very challenging vocation but it's been eye opening to read some specific example. Thanks to all fosters/adopters for the work you do .

Add message | Report | Message poster AdaLovelacesCat Fri 23-Sep-16 08:17:53
That's right. My son was slagging off his friend's foster parents that looked after friend and his brother when their parents could not. He said they would go on holiday without the boys. When I pointed out that they were probably not allowed to take them/the boys maybe did not have passports/the real parents had put a stop to it, son looked really surprised....
However I do think that if you take on two vulnerable teens, putting them in respite care so that you can jaunt off abroad is a bit nasty. Why not have a holiday in the UK?
*its not that simple often your assured by ss that they will get the passport or birth parent gives verbale consent so off you trot to book the Hoilday and then the days before yes the day before of the week before birth parent telly you sorry I have changed my mind
Or two weeks before your off sw rings you and say oh we have a court hearing or the Guadian wants to see the child and you will be like we're off on Hoilday and they will say well it's the only time all our darkest match up 🙁

I have also had to cancel outing due to un announced visits were you just leaving sw turns up eveyone out the car and a hour later you missed the showing at the cinema or its gets to late to go

Oh a btw even Hoildays in the uk can be refused often they want the children to have separate bu adjoing rooms so you have to pay for a room for yu and your oh a room for yur children and possibly two rooms or more depending on how many foster children you have or eveyone in with yu bar the foster children they don't help you money wise with Hoildays even there requests often costs extras

And camping is often out of the question because your all sleeping in the same room basically it's a bloody nightmare

However I do think that if you take on two vulnerable teens, putting them in respite care so that you can jaunt off abroad is a bit nasty. Why not have a holiday in the UK?

Because they're doing a bloody amazing thing opening their home and hearts to two vulnerable teens and in no way does this preclude a sunny holiday like the rest of us who are much less deserving of it.

If I was fostering again I would be so firm about SW visits and contact visits. They wouldn't happen at tea time. If SW was late, she would have to re-arrange. (SW used to turn up three hours late and then stay for two hours). I wouldn't spend Fridays driving across the city in rush-hour traffic because foster child and mother liked to spend their contact time in one particular shopping centre having a shopping extravangza. They could buy a taxi to and from on top of everything else.

Etc etc etc.

I will never understand why ss do that

and did you adopt DS Mrs DV?

Second that HKHKHR - really - I'd had no idea. Such important work.

We've been fostering for seven years.
The little chap with us at the moment has been through a terrible terrible times and is very angry.
He has a lot to be angry about.
It's very very hard work.
But if we don't looks after him, who will?

None of it is his fault. None of it at all.

I grew up in care and have experienced the good and bad sides of fostering. It's an incredible thing to do, and one which I am completely certain a huge amount of people don't really understand. I don't understand it entirely and I've lived it.

I do know that I wouldn't ever be willing to do it. As wonderful as it must be to feel you've made a difference to a child, my past has left me damaged and whilst those wounds have scabbed over, fostering would rip them right back open. All credit to anyone who opens their heart and home to children with nothing.

... which must have made life easier for all of you.....sounds like a pain it really does. Hats off to foster carers.

It's a very unfair world when good foster carers manage despite all the needless barriers thrown up by other 'professionals'.

So if they do such good only by resisting and overcoming the system, what happens to those children who get put with carers that are just as 'good' as the rest of the piss poor bureaucratic nightmare of a system?

It's incredibly upsetting.

(And as others have said, please remember it's not just abusive parents whose children come into the foster care system).

It was mad specifications over hotel rooms , and an unwillingness to bend inflexible rules that deprived one of ours of a good and educational trip to a foreign city

That's very true, MiscellaneousAssortment.

Aunt's current foster children are there because their mum has a worsening disability. They have prolonged contact with their mum (whole weekends when she can manage),she visits with carers most days, they have free access to the phone and Skype. It works very very well and they are hoping it continues indefinitely (aunt is looking towards this likely being her last placement before retirement).

Wow, this thread is an eye opener.

I really wanted to foster when my children are all nearly independent. I thought it would be a lovely thing to do and thought it would be easier than adoption! No way in hell am I doing it after reading these stories. Such a shame - people prepared to care for such vulnerable children should be given all the help and support available, not have barriers and misery put in their way.

I think it must be okay sometimes though? We have one fostered child in our private school so the foster parents must have been okayed to do that for them? They've also been allowed to come on the residential trips like everyone else.

Hello mani insomniac
Please explore fostering further
Forums generally attract relatively extreme cases, and there are many positive testimonies
We have had nothing but support from social services, family and friends.

It's the most fulfilling thing we have ever done and there are many many highs.

Our fc was really struggling at school and was receiving the truly crappest education imaginable, much to her detriment in every possible way. A long story but we were offered a funded place for her at a private school with tiny classes, an emphasis on her strengths and a head teacher who really 'got' her and wanted to make a difference in her life. The funding was in place for two years but after that we'd have to re apply.

SS said she had to stay in the crap school where she was miserable for the sake of continuity.

Like Mrs Devere I also caught the end of the discussion on radio 4

One of the men I found very irritating he was a potential foster parent and he and his wife were awaiting approval so in other words had never done it before he was also close to retirement I think so had made his money elsewhere not saying he was rich just that financials were not an issue for him - he then proceeded to try and tell a fellow foster parent whivfsdcdinevthe job for years how she was basically selfish for having any complaints and if she didn't have the money to do it she just shouldn't do it

• who had done fostering for many years - apols for typo

LymmMummy
* who had done fostering for many years - apols for typo

I don't think you made a typo - I think the autocorrect has got too big for its boots!

Name changed for this.

Foster carers for over ten years. The children we had were all hard to place teens. Youngest one was 11. We actually had very good social workers supporting us, but mixed social workers for the children.

The children we had came from a wide range of backgrounds - neglect, sexual abuse, munchausen by proxy, domestic violence. Although we were supposed to have been 'matched' as a family to the children, there was often very little matching carried out and the children's social worker on several occasions minimised behaviours that they knew about the child in order to get them placed with us - thus a child that we were told had been abused had in fact abused a younger child in a previous placement, and went onto abuse a child living with us. We asked that the child be removed immediately, for the safety of the other children living with us, but it took four weeks for social services to remove him. In the meantime we had to operate a 'lock down' system as the child would roam the house at night and try to get into other children's bedrooms. My DH took the 'night shift' in order to make sure nothing untoward happened.

On the subject of holidays. When you are fostering very difficult children, it's important for the well being of you and your birth children to be able to regroup sometimes and spend some time together. At the start of our fostering we were allowed to have a holiday once a year as a family. We had an extremely difficult child living short term with us and after five months we needed a holiday. The foster child went to respite with a fellow carer and we returned the favour when they got married and went on honeymoon themselves later in the year. The foster child did not miss out on a holiday as we paid for him to go to Canada on a school trip. That was the one and only holiday we had away from fostering for over ten years. We took children to Orlando with our own children and had no issue with passports. The option to have respite was withdrawn some years ago by the council.

If a child went missing we had to call the police and report them as missing. This would happen every evening for two weeks with one child - he would walk out of school and disappear to a friend's house to smoke weed. After 6 pm he would have to be reported as missing and the police would go through the rigmarole of searching our home, including loft, cupboards and sheds, and then driving round searching for him. He would always be found by 11 at night and DH would have to collect him from tHe police station. Pocket money of ten pounds per week plus a clothing allowance was mandatory and we were not allowed to impose any sanctions for bad behaviour.

Some of the children who lived with us are in prison now. Several have done very well and we are extremely proud of them living good productive lives. Most we have lost contact with as once they left the care system they returned to their families.

The good times have been wonderful. Seeing a child do well is amazing, but the strain on our own children was huge and I'm not sure that I would do it if I had my time again.