to despair that as a supposedly civilised society we can’t do better for children in care

[Welshwoman]

I keep seeing the advert here for the channel 4 program about kids in care and just think its disgusting how vulnerable children are treated in society when people like sp Abu Hamza get so many privileges in jail and so much money in legal aid (please note just the 1st person who sprang to mind not a ?Muslim? or race thing just a grown up prisoner thing)

My friend fosters and many of these children are ?lost? they have several different case workers a year - and are passed around like hand name down clothes

I despair that as a supposedly civilised society we can?t do better -

One of my thoughts would be that each child in care gets a non social worker advocate - some who cares for children but maybe can?t foster and that person is involved in any major decisions for as long as that child is in care to give the child some continuity and someone to talk to outside of the ?system ? in case there is abuse going on

What does anyone else think we can do ?

Under 11's. I understand the consistency reason, I think she asked if they could do the assessment now and then they'd have a ready and waiting foster carer when she finishes studying (they said it would take a year). I think that makes more sense than for them to say no straight off the bat, especially as they said she's suitable in every other way.

Not being so cracked on taking them INTO care for one thing.. helping their families to provide better care for them and making sure the step of taking them into care really is a last resort and not the most used and abused lip service paid sentence in the children act.

Can I just clarify (esp to BigBella) that since 2000 the leaving care act has specified that every care leaver must have a named worker until age 21, and they are considering extending that to 24. They must be accommodated until 18 by the leaving care team and must have support (financial and practical) to move into independent accommodation. They get money to set up a flat and in some loca authorities they get priroty need for council accommodation. If they go to university they get financial support, as they do if they go to college. This can be up to age 24 if they are in higher ed.

It used to be 16 and you are out - not any more.

Stercus - you obviously have some personal experience with this. I have to say though they it is harder now to take children into care than it was 20 years ago. Research was done that showed that outcomes for children in care were poor, so the culture changed from whisking children away to having to jump through two hundred hoops now to get them removed. So much damage is done now before thresholds are met to take children into care. Do remeber though, that statistically, most children who get taken into care are returned to their families within six months.
What I do agree with you is that there should be better intervention to help families be better parents and to protect their own children. Family support has been a cinderella servce for decades now. Instead of sw's working with a family over a long period of time offering support, now there are fewer sw's who, because the support has not been there, have to jump into child protection because things have got so bad.
My other suggestion for how to imprive things? Get practising sw's to design the whole family support/child protection system, not politicians or policymakers, but people who work in the field and know what needs to be done..

Children in care in this country have some of the worst outcomes for any other vunerable group. The stats are truly shocking.
I've represented children for over ten years and my experience leaves me angry and baffled.
It must cost millions to keep all the young offenders, teenaged Mums, drug addled teens that the care system produces.
My view would be whenever possible to support parents to keep their children. But tat has to be very realistic. I've reped so many kids who have remained at home for far, far too long. The damage has been extreme and irreperable.
For thos echildren who do need intervention it needs to take place swiftly and older children in particular need to be able to feel aprt of the decision making process. The lack of control just makes their behaviours worse.
Foster caring ouhgt ot be far better paid and better supported.
Care homes ought to be tiny. Like a family. With wall to wall counselling and support. I visyted one in Germany that was fabulous. Five children in a house. Four adults who had been there for over three years. Lots and lots of therapy. It must have cost an arm and a leg but the children will have a much better chance of taking their place in society.

Litchick - I have to disagree slightly that the care system 'produces' ie is responsible for the outcomes of these young people. It often doesn't help (though it also often does help) but these young people have been abused, neglected and damaged by their families, not by foster carers.
Foster caring (in my area) is pretty well paid and very well supported. However the problem here is house prices - it's a small local authority that covers a small city, and the number of suitable potential foster carers with spare room/s is miniscule.
I have never been to a care home with more than 5 residents. I have worked with a young man who lived in a £3000 a week two(staff) to one care home in the sussex countryside. They are available but the local authorities need to have the budgets to fund them.

Relatives need to be supported emotionally and finacially in order for them to be able to care for children.

There a thousands of kinship cares out there stuggling having been left with the care of children. They are not given help to maintain the placement and when it fails its 'well relative placements never work'.

There are some great social workers out there who recognise the importance of keeping children within their famlies but too many still have ingrainded prejudices i.e. if the parents are scummers that,the rest of the family must be too.

We are not and we care about our kids. But most of us need help. It is very hard to take on extra children with all the expense that incurs. Some of us have had to give up jobs (at social services insistance), the children we love are traumatised and often have additional needs AND we have to cope with the abuse from deranged birth parents.

IF kinship care was given the support and status it deserved it could save thousands of kids from being in the care system.

You know its not just kids are taken into care, some times the parent(s) voluntarily place the child(ren) in care. And they aren't necessarily abused or neglected either.
I was voluntarily placed in a childrens home because my mother couldn't cope and fourtunately realised that.

JoPie - it's really difficult to do that these days. The first port of call would be 'why do you feel you can't cope, and how can we support you'. I'm not saying it always works though, and preventative services are being phased out because of budget cuts so not coping often has to move to neglecting/abusing before the kids will be taken into care.
You are right though, many children are in care under section 20 (voluntary agreement) but that doesn't necessarily mean that the parents willingly agreed, or that it was their idea.

I suppose I'm thinking of a good 15 years ago, so things have prob changed, alot for the worse it would appear!

Its very hard to place teens. We dont have big group homes anymore so beds are limited. Not all foster carers work with older children (I dont think I would).

The vast majority of the kids in the system have been removed from VERY unwilling parents. The kids are that willing either, despite what has happened to them.

Kat - your point that it is the parents and not the system that produces poor outcomes for children seems very dangerous to me. Once children are being looked after by the state then the state must take full responsibility. Otherwise you start to sound like Shoesmith, refusing to accept that anything could be done for Baby P.
As a parent myself I can't point the finger at anyone else, the buch stops with me, so when the state becomes parent so it must too.
There is a huge shortage of foster parents in this country and much of that is to do wwith money. It may be that you woek in London, but in many parts of the country it is not the spare room that is a problem is the being asked to give up emplyment and not being recompenssed for it.
As for children's homes, well I 've visited more than I can count and many have over ten, sometimes more children in them. Secure units are often packed to the rafters. The satff turn over is ludicrous and the therapy on offer is pitiful.
Children do get over painful memories with good care. They can get past abuse. The reason they don't in this country is because we don't have the resources and because of an endemic attitude that the diabolical outcomes for children in the care system are inevitable.

I agree kinship carers should be paid an allowance. Yes it's family, and I'm sure they'd all do it for free if money was no object. But this is real life. I've even heard of cases where family and friends who asked for an allowance were viewed as doing it for the money. It's not fair.

Maybe we should be far more flexible and less PC in terms of who can adopt, in London there are huge numbers of minority ethnic children waiting to be adopted because current policy is not to have interracial adoption. I personally think it is sick that we spend tax money on IVF (for which success rates are very low) to enable people to have their "own" children when so many children need to be adopted. If you are that desperate to be a parent then you should be willing to adopt as a first option IMO. Of course one of the problems is people want to adopt babies not troublesome 8 year olds.

The sad fact is many children n care have been left with their parents far too long and that is what has caused the problem. So often it is clear at a very young age that the parents are utterly inadequate and the children should be removed immediately, unfortunately thousands of pounds and many years are spent supporting the family who then fail the child anyway, child is put in care but by this point is so damaged is very difficult to place.

There are many utterly, utterly appalling and unfit parents out there doing huge damage to their children and greater society. Giving birth does not IMO make you a parent it's a responsibility and not a right.

Stercus - I have to say I have the opposite POV. In my view they need to be taken into care earlier.

LO

I will reply to that by pasting a comment i made on another thread.

Maybe it is more difficult for me to be objective given that i have more experience.

I totally agree.

You meet more, and in a different capacity, you too may just change your mind.

As it stands they're just one more arm of a police state.

They COULD be better.

My own case cost more than it would to buy a house. TAXPAYERS money, which i would rather have been spent on counselling for DD which they denied she needed, and eventually caved in and got a specialist in.

Dya know, they were supposed to be returning her home, they told her she was coming home, her bags were packed, and the room was ready and decorated, at the last hour they pulled the plug, because they had a phonecall off the cafcass officer saying that she wasn't happy.

My DD cried so much. And then she began to starve herself. They promised she could come home in order to get her eating again, then placed her in a school they knew was so far from me there was no way i could get her there, then they said, and i quote "It would be too unsettling for her to move school so she cannot come home now"

They had moved her from a school she had attended since nursery, to a school she knew no one, the school she SHOULD have gone to with all her friends was more accessible for me.

They did it on purpose because i had fought so hard, had them in court, in a magazine and newspaper, i had tape recorded their conversations, i always had the right answer.
In short, i pissed them off so they used DD as a weapon.

She nearly died of starvation because of their shitty 'care' .. she had the same pair of shoes for a whole year, her feet are damaged beyond repair, they mentioned her speech often but refused to let her have the tongue tie cut, they never offered her to ANY member of the family, one 'carer' punished my dd for wetting herself by making her go to school in the same clothes the next day UNWASHED, and this same 'woman' allowed dd's toenails to grow so long they curled over and went into the skin underneath her toes, every time we had a new SW i was told contact was stopped, they took ages to inform me of the new sw's name so i could contact and ask for contact to be reinstated, one sw i phoned for advice to be told she wasn't in the office...i was calling off my mobile from outside the office because i was pissed off at being fobbed off, i was still on the phone when i went into the office and THERE SHE WAS!

I could carry on for EVER.

Glad YOU had a good experience, i'm not scaremongering, i'm telling it how it was. But i STILL have posted on here recommending people contact them. In this case i tried to be supportive on here rather than directing her towards them as i know what could have happened and i didn't want her to risk that given that she HAD already taken steps to protect the kids.

Whether right or wrong this has turned out ok for HW with any luck and i wish her all the best. This wasn't an SS issue for me, it was one of confidentiality and support for many people. If the SS are so bothered why don't they monitor the site FGS. Why isn't there a 'topic' where you could post a problem and ask for any available SW's to answer?

If you go to them or they come to you, or you consider going to them but are worried about losing your kids, who is to blame? THEY are..because they didn't get the reputation for nothing.

Maybe i just met a few (approximately 9) bad eggs, and 2 good ones, not bloody good odds is it.

And i stand by what i said about some being put off posting on here which is a shame.
I imagine a lot of tumbleweed going through some people's profiles due to the rush to delete theirs since this has happened.
I have left mine cos i give not a flying shit.

Stercus - I know nothing about your case so I can't possibly comment on it. I understand that you probably don't want to rehash details but I will say that I think the fact that foster carers are paid is to the detriment of the qulaity of foster carers. Hence my preference for adoption. I have come across several bloody awful foster carers who were in it solely for the money.

Have not read all the posts, yet...but someone said, why don't these things get better funding...and I tink it is such a shame , because, if the care system was better and more succesful, than I would think less of the children in care would end up being criminals once growing up (and hence it would be possibly saving money in the long term)...because sadly that seems to be what is happening....and not because the children are bad, but because they are not supported in the way they are...
I have no idea how the danish system works, but maybe if it works well, than it would be worth taking a closer look!

LondonOne.. I have come across FC's who were DEFINATELY not in it for the money, DD's current one being such a lady.

FC's have quite a few things to say about SS too IME.

And its all bad.

Sorry should have said because the money is crap.

I do not agree with adoption because it is permanant, if the parents are found to be 'not guilty' or, significantly improved as to be capable of caring for the child, adoption can not be reversed.

Of course it is, and will remain, the most viable and best option for SOME children, and provide the best outcome.

But not all, not across the board, by any means.

I believe a total ban on smacking coupled with widely available parenting courses would be a bloody good start for families in this country.
Int gonna happen though is it.

But londoneone adoption is NOT the same as having your 'own' child. Its not as simple as that.

Even the yougest kids who are freed for adoption are about 2 years old. Its rare to get them younger than that. They come with a lifetime of experiences and these cannot be ignored or 'loved' away.

You have to want to ADOPT not want to have a baby. The two things are poles apart.

Why foist children into care on to couples who want their own flesh and blood. That is not going to end happily.

There are lots of debates on interracial adoption. It can work. Adoption is difficult and it has a very high 'disruption' rate (up to 1:3). That is why it is important to match children with families very carefully.

IMO the answer lies in enabling more people from black and ethnic backgrounds to adopt. We know that these families (mine included) tend to be on lower incomes and are less likely to have a spare room (who has a spare room in London?). Adoption allowances need to be higher and grants available for extending accomadation.

AND paying allowances for Kinship carers to care for the children they love.

It is madness to pay stranger foster carers (however brilliant) to care for a child that would've gone to a loving auntie but couldnt because social services would not fund the placement.

Kids do better when they stay within their extended families. Save the fostercare places for those kids who have no one to take them in.

My DS would have been on of those mixed race kids in foster care. He wouldnt have been adopted because he has so many strikes against him - his race, his gender, his additional needs, his birth mother's history.

That is the same position for so many kids in care. People dont want to adopt them. Its got nothing to do with PC.

The number of adoption break downs is very sad. As you say, many couples want their own baby. When that doesn't happen the next stage shouldn't be to adopt removed children. People who do that have to want to do that. It can be very challenging - particularly open adoptions.
There is nothing worse than a failed adoption. For a child to be rejected again must be beyond painful.
I do wonder if more poeple would foster if they were aware that it can be quite felxible. I've met couples who just do emergency overnight removals. Couples who just do babies. I know one fab lady who does short term teens. But I suppose what's really, really needed is long term placements which in turn are probably the hardest to manage.

And I totally disagree that the quality of FCs depends on not paying them - that somehow they should do it for love. Well of course they should want to do it, but they should also be recompensed by the state, their de facto parent. For short term fostering in partciular,and with teens, you are not looking for a new paernt figure as in adoption. You are looking for someone to care for a damaged child in very difficult circumstances. That takes skill and courage which should be recognised. It can also be bloody expensive, with endless appointments, meetings etc., special equipment, food. Lots of good, honest folk are put off cos they just can't afford it.

Lit I would apply to foster on Monday if I had the room. We dont and we wont until one of our children leave. Thats why so many foster carers are older.

I do not know anyone who has a spare room in their house in London. I am working class and we are on a low income. I do have friends from lots of different backgrounds (no class apartheid for me ) but the majority are in my situation. Council housing in non exsistant so noone gets allocated an extra bedroom for when the kiddies come along like in the old days. People struggle to buy flats and houses of an adequate size let alone bigger than their immediate needs.

I think there should be some sort of scheme (like the disabled facilities grant but hopefully faster and better managed) that would paid for adaptations to foster carer's homes. A loft conversion or a downstairs bedroom would allow someone like me to become a foster carer. To prevent abuse of the scheme we would all have to be carefully assessed and the price of the adaptations deducted if we sold up. Maybe we would have to agree to pay the money back interest free if we pulled out after a short time.

It COULD be made to work. I would invisage flurry of chancers trying it on but a few weeks of foster care training would soon get them thinking it just wasnt worth it.

Some one give me a downstairs bedroom, I have the downstairs bathroom now - I would take a child with complex disabilities for respite or long term care - promise

chegirl- there is money available in SSD for adaptations to FC's homes.
FCs also get priority for bigger council homes , though as you say availability is an issue.