AIBU to question my friend's daughter effectively moving in with us?

[thesunisnearlyhere]

This is a long winded one and I will try not to drip feed.

my childhood friend is having some major issues at the moment although I have sort of lost sympathy over time. Let’s call her Sarah.

Sarah and I grew up in the same area and went to school with eachother from the age of 4 until 16.
she eventually has children with a mutual friend we had growing up who was always “ trouble “
I had my own kids with someone not from the local area and our lives are very different. We have always remained friends though.
she now has 3 kids and I have 4 kids.
the relationship between her and “ Steve “ has always been toxic. She throws him out every other week but his never changed I got tired over 10 years supporting her when he was always allowed back.
we both have daughters who are now in secondary school.
life has not changed for her one bit and still on the rotation of kicking DP out and having explosive fights every other week.
drugs, alcohol and the rest of it.
her teen daughter who is lovely has spent more and more time at our house.
I won’t let my DD around there and so they spend most of there time at mine. This gradually turned in to her being here over the weekends all the time and never going home during a school holiday.
last week after school broke up there was another huge fight, I went and picked up all the children and in the end and bought them back to mine.
I rang social services the 2 younger children are currently now at their aunts house and the eldest is still with me. Apparently social services are pretty useless and the younger 2 are returning home. The eldest is refusing and wants to remain here. The social services at this point don’t seem very bothered about her staying here and are coming for anoher visit on Wednesday.
Sarah has basically said keep her - she got us in to this mess. She seems to be blaming eldest for the social involvement because she rang my daughters phone that night.
she says she loves her but that she clearly doesn’t want to come home so she can just stay here.
surely it’s not that simple and social work just let her move in here with us ?
It seems a big responsibility to have another child who is not mine just move in.
social services have visited and made sure she is safe and coming against Wednesday but what happens next ?

From the age of about 9 a close friend of my (now adult) DD gradually became a part of our household for about 70% of the time ... she was always welcome and shared holidays and outings with us.
Her home setup was unstable but not physically abusive or neglectful. The mother was engaged in shifting relationships and DD's friend found it destabilising and distressing. She was a professional woman.
We simply accepted things as she slotted very happily into our home life. Now an adult she is a bit like a DD ... indeed she cancelled a holiday to be at my OH's funeral.
One thing I would say is, having several DDs I am aware that secondary school age girls can do quite a bit of falling out and I think you need to think through what might happen if your DD fell out with Sarah ... it does happen. Because the presence of my DD's friend in our home was not formalised nor full time we would have had no problem in dealing with it.... luckily it did not happen and she is like a sister to my AC.
I do think you need to prepare for possible challenges from inter personal relationships as well as clarifying the legal situation ... and financial... who is buying clothes/paying for school trips etc?

I'm really not determined to prove you wrong at all-that's what you are actually doing! I'm just sharing my own experience and advice as you are.

OP- explore all the options with the social worker when they visit.

What happens when hormones hit and the girls fall out?

You are correct

To other posters asking about the threshold for safeguarding. Its not really a threshold for safeguarding, its a threshold for separation. To separate a child from its parent has to be high, it has to be huge benefits which outweigh the cost of that separation. Courts (and this is not in proceedings but I am just giving an example) must evidence that the legal test for separating a child from their parents is met when making that decision

So in this case, the LA have not commenced pre proceedings, the parent would be supported to have their child return home as the others have already done.

You need to put your own children first.
one of my siblings had school friends live with us at times. It was awful in all sorts of ways.

But that’s because you are wrong in the advice you gave!!

You need to tell SS that you will do this on any official.basis and you will need funding. Do not allow them to expect you to foot the bill.

I've been a qualified Social worker for almost 30 years and now in a senior management role. I know what I'm talking about!! I've also worked in about 8 different LAs as well as a Children's Guardian in court proceedings so am well aware of the law as well as the differences between LAs and the discretion applied with the amount of financial support available.

What an amazing woman you are, OP.
Thank you for stepping up for this vulnerable young girl. The world needs more people like you (and your DH!)

No one has training to manage teenagers. Even those from stable homes challenge in some cases. You are writing as if it’s inevitable that this child will become a huge problem behaviourally and that isn’t necessarily the case. This happened to a friend of mine when I was 13. He ended up being better behaved and a stabilizing influence on the child of the house. He was so grateful to the patched for giving him what he never had with his own parents that he would never have done anything to mess it up.

So why on earth did you provide the information you did if you have all that experience? We are clearly not going to agree on this so let’s not derail the thread any further.

If you do decide to care for your friends daughter then I would suggest you request maximum support from the local authority including social work support and financial support.

It's a big responsibility to care for an unrelated child and there is also the possibility that she might go to foster care if you were unable to care for her.

There are no policies set in stone and every agreement and 'policy' is nuanced and often depends on how you negotiate with the Local Authority. Always ask to speak to senior management if you don't feel you are getting anywhere with the social worker.

Best of luck with whatever you decide.