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

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"

On the "Introduction to Foster Care" group hubby and I attended there were 20 prospective foster families - who had applied. Out of that 20 families only 4 families were still interested at the end of the evening. Out of those 4 families 2 gave up within the year of having their first placement. Only one other family (besides ours) persevered. I have to say I loved having the children. Some were certainly more difficult than others. I gave up, after 12 years, because there was absolutely no support from our Supervising Social Worker and the children's needs were given very little consideration from their Social Worker.

I made 4 different complaints, through the complaints procedure, as I felt the children in my care were not being afforded the same opportunities as children who were living with their birth parents. All four of my complaints were upheld against the LA.

If anyone is considering fostering I can only advise them to foster with an Independent Agency. They seem to provide a hell of a lot more support for foster carers and will liaise with the child's Social Worker, in the child's best interest.

My only regret re fostering is the simplistic, ideological and downright ridiculous views of our fostering supervising social worker and the need for the children's SW to place all fostered children into a box, rather than see them as individuals with individual needs. Oh! and the need for Social Workers to support each other - rather than to place the children's needs above their colleagues.

I have also heard of a fellow foster carer who encountered the same situation as scand where an abused child had been placed in a family who didn't know know that she had been abused. Her SW had been expressly told to 'play down the abuse' by her line manager, presumably to secure the placement.

The problem was that this child's needs and the needs of other children in the family were unmet as a result of not having this information. It belies belief that SS do this - but they do and it clearly wasn't a one-off.

I also found a different SW turning up once a week to speak to our foster child spectacularly unsuccessful. She had no named social worker (who was ever actually working) and was expected to unburden herself to a different woman each week, knowing that they knew nothing about her life and frankly cared less. The constant intrusive questions from complete strangers and insistence that this occur in her bedroom, away from us, seemed inappropriate and unhelpful for a child with boundary issues.

One of the worst things that happened to me as a foster carer, no allowance for months. ( no sw either, that was a bonus) It didn't matter as this particular child happened to be chaep to look after, not a window smasher, or a wall paper poo smearer etc ;but when I eventually contacted the council to query it, they had lost all records of the placement, and were not even aware the child existed.......

This is an interesting thread, thanks to everyone who has contributed.

Interestingly I saw this today which is mostly from the perspective of Americans who have experience with the foster care system there. While there seems to be a lot of red tape with the British one the US one sounds frightening, at least when people misuse it. Anyway, thought it might be interesting to see the differences.

www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/549smd/serious_people_who_grew_up_in_the_foster_care/

Playing down the issues to secure the placement happens ALL THE TIME so as to be ridiculous

Particularly IOE the very violent child whose family placement had broken down due to violence was portrayed as sheer unfeeling cruelty on their part

The child with sexually inappropriate behaviour was simply portrayed as SN/EBD both before they came and when they were moved on.

Agencies are far better than council

The US system is horrific a lot of foster homes simply become children's homes run by one couple. Anyone can seemingly adopt and the vetting process is laughable

I saw a horrendous programme once. "Available " children were sent to picnics to be chosen. It was like a cattle auction. The children stood on stage at one point with name tags whilst people marked off the ones they were interested in from a list.

Like I said upthread, if people are interested, don't be put off. I don't have birth children but, as far as I can tell, I treat my foster children as much like I would birth children as I can.

Someone said they weren't allowed to force children on day trips. Well, I don't physically force mine obviously, but if we're going out for the day and they have a bit of a moan I give them a bit of a lecture and they comply (then have a nice time, as I knew they would!).

If they behave badly we're allowed to discipline them how we see fit. No smacking, obviously, but removal of privileges, time out etc. I've been on courses and social workers have spoken of the importance for foster children to have boundaries and for there to be consequences for bad behaviour. I like to think the punishments are how I would punish any birth children for similar behaviour, and try to have as many 'natural consequences' as possible. So when one of mine was badly behaved at a youth club I banned him from the club for a few weeks, if (when they were younger) they were misbehaving at a play park, I would just bring them straight home etc.

I have heard that if they go missing as teenagers you're meant to phone the police and not look for them yourself, even if you know where they are. By the time my eldest is 13 he'll have lived with me for 7 years. If I know where he's gone there's no way in hell that I'm phoning the police before I've gone there myself to order him home. I'm hoping he and his brother will have been with us for long enough by then that we manage to get through the teenage years without too much drama anyway but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it!

There have been times when I've thought 'the system' has been quite rubbish. But general day to day life we're mostly left to get on with things. The worst time for me was the first year when the children were with us short term and the parents were being assessed to have them back. They had to stay at their original school, so I had to get them there and back. The commute for me on buses and walking as I don't drive was about 4 hours in total and I was so sick of it by the end. It didn't help that the children didn't like the school and I wasn't very impressed by it. As soon as it was decided they were staying with me I asked to change school, and was allowed to pick the one I wanted. Things are so much better now. During that first year parental contact was 3 times a week. Sometimes I took them to it and sometimes they were picked up by a succession of different contact workers. As someone else said, you wouldn't let your own children get in a stranger's car, but you have to let vulnerable, damaged foster children. Now contact is twice a month so it's more manageable. Behaviour was obviously worse in the early days as well so it could be quite stressful and I was sooooo tired! 2 years in, they're not little angels by any means but I would say they're in the realms of 'normal' behaviour for kids their age! The older one has slight SN so sometimes needs careful handling but mostly he's lovely and just a bit immature.

I absolutely love my life now and am so pleased I became a foster carer. New carers are always needed so if you're really interested please do look into it.

Goodness, yes you are right about playing down a violent child. We had an emergency placement of a teenager. We were asked to have her for two nights and told that her mother had beaten her up and that she was neglected/no clothes or possessions.

The truth was rather different. Teenager was quiet and well behaved until the review when her mother attended. It transpired that the child terrified and beat up her mother regularly and the reason for her lack of clothing was that she sold everything for drugs. The mother was so relieved that her daughter was in care and

posted too soon.

mother did not want girl home.

After the review the girl's behaviour emerged here. Beating up the other foster children in placement, pushing me down the stairs, drug use in the house, setting fires. We spoke to school and they were well aware of the child's behaviours and so were social services who had been involved for years. It took two weeks for another placement to be arranged.