To wonder if foster care is the best of the bad options if our children were to lose both DH and I?

[ohmaaaan]

Horrible subject but …

In the event of something happening to both DH and myself. I’m wondering if our children might be better in the care system. I know the usual response is no, absolutely not - but we don’t have anyone who could take them. The only person who could realistically take them in is SIL and BIL, who live a long way away and have their own children and a house full. They are nice people but the children don’t know them very well, largely because of the distance.

I would ideally want them to stay at the same school and in the same area but maybe that’s not realistic.

Obviously hope it doesn’t happen.

Also don't assume all of your DC would be placed together as few FC's have multiple spare bedrooms.

I keep thinking this is my best bet too, but I'm becoming more decrepit by the day.

I'm an only child and my parents are getting older. In-laws are all out of the question due to age and illness. I always thought we'd make close friends locally once our kids were at school, but we have made superficial friendships at best. I have one good friend who said she'd take them, but the kids don't know her and she doesn't live in the same city. There isn't an ideal solution at all.

I would not roll the dice that is foster care unless I had no other option.
Better your children are with trusted people in a different area than taking their chances in what is the most inaccurately named "care" system.

And yes, everyone should plan for things like this. You dont plan only for those things that are likely to happen or are imminent. Hope for the best, plan for the worst.

They don't have to be doting relatives, just willing and vaguely capable. The local authority aren't going to take responsibility for and pay to accommodate your children if there are half good enough relatives willing. They are placing children with relatives they have never met in countries they have never been to. The legal obligation is to place with family if at all possible.

You sound wonderful!! The two boys are very fortunate to have you in their lives. ❤️

I totally understand your fear. It is natural to worry about lots of different things for your children. I don’t think it is unreasonable to wonder about this.

can I say though, that when I last worked in children’s social care the family courts were saying - verbatim - ‘the system is now broken’ in response to local authorities simply not being able to identify foster carers AT ALL for children who needed them. There is not an abundance of carers, not near your children’s school, not anywhere. Also, foster care costs the local authority around £300 (if I recall correctly) per child per week. The child also has to have constant social work visits, numerous health assessments, LAC reviews. It would probably need to be formalised through the courts - costing the LA another £10k+ for a care order. It really is a huge upheaval for a child to go into care. It is serious last option stuff. Foster carers give notice, want to go on holiday alone, retire etc etc, the reality of care for children can be seriously bleak, so in that scenario, your family members trump foster care in every single sense.

I have spoken to my siblings about caring for their children and we have all agreed we would, whether it requires moving areas for us/the children - whatever is necessary. One set of nephew/nieces lives a fair distance. If both their parents died I’d move with my kids into their home, to give them as much stability as possible. You have to think about the protective instinct that would kick in - for my sibling’s children I would be desperate to do what I could given they’d lost both parents (god forbid).

best thing you can do is take out life insurance so there is a lump sum to support anyone caring for your children and make sure your will says what you’d like to happen to the children and the finances.

I’m not assuming anything. Just weighing up options 👍🏻

I need to make my will but I have already asked my best friend if she would have them. Unfortunately she lives 90 odd minutes away, but atleast they know her. She currently has no space for them.
Have you even asked your sil? There's no point in worrying about it, they might just say no.

@Duckin i wouldn’t say it’s a fear. I am surprised at the number of posters who seem to think this question is driven by fear and anxiety. To me, it’s no more irrational than fully comp cover or home insurance. I’ve been driving since 1998, never been in an accident until last week when someone rear ended me at speed and wrote my car off 😭 luckily I was fine but it does go to show, all it takes is that one moment.

I have friends who foster/used to foster and they are always being asked by SW if they can take extra children. There will not be a choice of prospective fosterers in your area, with a couple of empty bedrooms and no other children in the house. It is sensible to plan for the worst scenario and hopefully it never happens. If you can make financial provision that would help whoever takes care of your DC.

It’s sensible , like doing wills.

Of course there would be other children. They would have their own bedroom, that's about the only benefit! You say they go to a small village school - how many foster carers do you think live in the village?

Foster care costs the LA a lot more than £300 a week - that's the allowance they pay the carer, but they also have to pay salaries to the supervising social worker and managers, recruitment costs, training, additional expenses. And yes, the system is definitely broken.

They would have their own bedrooms though. Which is a huge thing I’d say.

You actually think it's worth living with strangers, potentially separated, just to have their own rooms?

DH and I asked friends to take ours if needed when they were younger. I wouldn't have trusted either of our parents to raise them, however, I'm a social worker so hate to say it but I wouldn't trust the care system either.
An overcrowded busy household with people you know is better than taking the risk with foster care, even if the care with family was below the standard you'd want.
I do want to say some foster carers are amazing and some take long term children fully in and the whole family embraces them. Some foster carers aren't fit for managing children's trauma. Some see it as a just a job and are quick to end placements when they don't need the income or things get too tough.

I like to have half a plan for a worst case scenario. I don't know why you're getting grief from posters for considering something so important.

When our kids were young we made sure we had good life insurance if anything should happen to us and that would go into a trust fund to pay for the kids care.

We named my brother and sister-in-law as guardians. They don't live near us and don't have or want children but we figured that in a catastrophic situation like both of us dying they would be the best option to make good decisions. And quite frankly if he didn't step up in such a terrible time I'd be hugely disappointed.

We spoke to them and said that being a guardian didn't necessarily mean the kids moving in with them. But we would trust them to make the best decisions for them at whatever time.

I trust that if the worst happened my brother, my friends, maybe even their teachers, scout leaders, whoever, would support my brother to make good decisions. Not suggesting for a minute that they would move in with their teacher but I think that people who care about them might reach out and offer support or suggestions if they have any.

Maybe a friend would take them. Maybe they would be old enough to express an opinion. Maybe they will be at a critical exam stage and my brother would stay in our house for a while. Maybe they would want a complete fresh start and want to move away. Maybe they'll be 16 and move out and join the army.

I can't predict. I can only involve the best people I can. I can't do any better than that.

Do you have folk you trust to make good decisions, even if they can't provide a home?

I think that I would have been very, very uncomfortable to have been sharing a home and room with people I didn’t know well (remember BIL and SIL are as good as strangers to them, they aren’t warm familiar adults. I’m not suggesting they are bad people or anything but that’s the situation.)

Far away family over foster care every time. They go to foster care and their life chances significantly reduce and they won’t be staying in the same area anyway!

Sexual abuse in foster care is more likely than with their aunt and uncle in the general population.

What do you think foster care is? They’d be in a home with foster carers and potentially other children they don’t know who could have traumas you don’t know.

They'd be sharing a home with people they don't know at all in foster care and there's a good chance they'd move again or have other children coming and going.

1. find someone you'd be happy and willing to take care of your children, get LIFE INSURANCE, make will
2. get life insurance so that whoever takes care of them has resources, can move to appropriate home if needed, get a psychologist for kids, etc.
3. you are worried about school and bedroom?, sometimes it's hard for siblings to stay together

We have had several discussions about this. Our current will has my in-laws and then one of my sister's. We did reassess this last year though when my sister had an unexpected heart attack in her early 40s, no risk factor - healthy weight, active, vegan and a non smoker.

When we last did our wills we included complete Doomsday and listed what we would want doing with our estate if something was to happen to us and the children.

Flip the situation on its head, is there scope to bring the BIL/SIL more in their lives?

But surely they have MET your BIL/SIL... and their cousins. That is very very different to absolute, total strangers, alongside potentially being split up, moved to a new area and no guarantee they would go straight into medium or long term foster, they might go to short term emergency foster and then a group childrens home before long term foster can be found.

Unless things have changed dramatically, group childrens homes are very stressful and alien places - I lived in a group young homeless persons home (so 16 up to 21), a friend was in a group childrens home for a while... I'd have taken the vaguest of distant rellies over that any day!

In the horrific situation that your parents both drop dead suddenly, any scrap of familiarity or sense of belonging that being related to someone brings is hugely valuable!