Should parents contribute?

[shoppingismydownfall]

I'm aware this may be a contraversial topic. I work in social care and see children brought into the care system from all backgrounds, from the extremely wealthy to extremely poor. I'm not debating the rights and wrongs of social workers here.

My Aibu is, if it costs the local authority on average £3,000 per week to look after that child, should parents be financially assessed to contribute towards their care?

Oh I know that @x2boys I have a child with disabilities and have reached out for help myself in the past, albeit not residential care.

But I would have thought that wealthy parents (actually wealthy, not all who have a higher than average income) would have more options for appropriate housing and care before it came to a point of having to relinquish care completely. But I also know it’s not as simple as that.

@shoppingismydownfall

Just for example, I was raised in care and my parents were very comfortable finacially. Why shouldn't they contribute?

Presumably they did through taxation? And if they didn't, that's one area that needs reform!

I imagine statistically these cases are so unusual it'd not be worth the administration to make the law, agree how it'd work and enforce it.

If it costs that much to keep a child half-way decently, why do CMS only require absent parents to pay so little?

@Jux

If it costs that much to keep a child half-way decently, why do CMS only require absent parents to pay so little?

Do you think social workers etc work for £0?

@Jux

If it costs that much to keep a child half-way decently, why do CMS only require absent parents to pay so little?

Two different issues, there will be many complex reasons why children go into care, and in some cases the cost of keeping them in care will cost ££££, s depending on the needs of the child.

Placements in the thousands per week are usually in private and/or therapeutic settings so higher staff ratios but also run for profit. The Competitions and Markets Authority is currently investigating the issue.

From the recent Case for Change review of social care

“Across both fostering and residential care it is impossible to ignore the increasing role of private provision. 78% of children’s homes are provided by private providers and 41% approved fostering places are provided by independent fostering agencies (Ofsted, 2021a, p. 20). The average reported price per child for a place in an independent children’s home in England in 2018/19 was around £4,000 per week (more than £200,000 annualised), representing an increase of 40% on prices in 2012/13 (Rome, 2020b). Across the largest twenty providers this amounts to a profit estimated at £265 million or a profit margin of 17.2% (Rome, 2020a). Supply is not meeting demand, the overall number of looked-after children at 31 March increased by over 24% between 2009/10 and 2019/20, but the number of children’s home places grew by just 8% in the years 2011/12-2019/20 (Department for Education, 2021e).25
The review is concerned about the cost, profit, and financial health of providers and the impact of the current system on children. We want a pragmatic re-think given the urgent problems, the complexity of the issues and the fragility of the current system. We are pleased the CMA are undertaking a market study in this area and are working closely together, within the bounds of the CMA’s legal powers and obligations and respecting the independence of both pieces of work. There is an active debate in the sector about whether incremental improvement of commissioning or radical rethinking of the care marketplace is needed to ensure that children receive the care that they need. This review will consider all options. We have also asked the What Works Centre for Children’s Social Care to work with the Government Outcomes Lab at Oxford University to look at effective models of commissioning that could be applied to children’s social care.”

Ds's respite costs £500 a night. Specialist residential settings are expensive.

But presumably £3k is an average, and many children won't have special needs?

Disability aside think about the type of background that a child is likely to have for it to be necessary for a child to come into the care system. They are going to need a lot of specialist support.

Fair enough. But 5 times the cost of a top boarding school? And at 18 they're supposed to cope without support?

There is very limited foster care provisions within local authorities - they are the cheaper provision. Therefore it is outsourced to private agencies - whether foster care or residential home for both SEN and non-SEN children. As someone mentioned above, this is for profit and the prices are eye watering.

I think also a child having respite or placement due to SEN is different as the parents are still likely to be heavily involved and contributing financially to clothes, presents, days out etc.

It the parents who abandon / demand their children are taken into care and then don’t bother that should be means tested.

LA’s don’t often put the ability to do this into practice as it isn’t equal, as it means a wealthy parents is paying where as a parent in poverty isn’t…

A Child could be in care due to emotional abuse from the parent. I would be concerned about the hold that a parent might continue to have over a child due to their financial contributions. For example suggesting that the child still owes them, or they aren't wanted by the foster carer and are only there because the parent pays them.
I would also be concerned about what control parents would expect to have over foster placements if they financially contributed, for example refusing a placement for their child based on ethnicity.

I really cant see how it would work.