contact

[lulubooboo]

Hello,

we have just completed the second day of the skills to foster course. A few things are hitting home hard and making us wonder if this is going to work for us.

We have two young children, one in morning nursery and one in year 1. We are looking at fostering 0-2 year olds.

Our concern is the contact arrangements; it has been made clear that we would be expected to transport the child to and from contact, which could be as much as 7 hours, 7 days a week.

When I raised the issue of school drop off and pick up times of my own children restricitng our ability to do this and also that this would provide limited quality family time for us during the summer holidays we were told that if we feel we cannot fulfil this due to the needs of our own family, we are unlikely to get to panel.

Any thoughts? Does anyone foster with a similar family age group to us and can you shed some light on how contact waa discussed with you and how you balance caring for a foster child without neglecting your own children?

Many thanks in advance

Are you with a private fostering agency? Will you have to travel far to contact. Your not expected to stay there for 7 hours are you?
I am going with LA and they say it will be worked out around the needs of my house firstly and that they can do the transporting if timing clashes. I am also told I am not expected to wait while contact takes place.

We currently foster 2 children - 18mths & 2.5 yrs old.

They have contact (when she turns up!!) 3 times a week for 2 hours - its currently 'supervised' so its at a 'family centre' and a qualified social worker sits in..

I take them, and then collect them - because of distance and because she is nearly always late, its not even worth me coming home so I tend to do a bit of shopping, have a cuppa in Mcdonalds etc to kill a bit of time.

It does take a huge amount of your day up - I spend 80 minutes driving (we do get our petrol paid for).

We don't have our own children, so we are lucky in not having to juggle them and neither of us 'work'.

Contact is so varied depending on the child and the circumstances. I believe with a newborn it could be daily like you say but you just have to do the drop off and collection - you should not stay - this is time for the parents and the child and you being present would not help for them to have a good meeting.

I think a lot of it comes down to willingness & flexibility. Our LA did consider transporting the kids back to us after contact to avoid trouble with Mum, but I argued against this as a different face each time for the kids wasn't going to help. I think with a good LA and you being flexible & willing you might be able to work something out.

Saying that, contact is a HUGE part of fostering (imho) and if you are not 100% committed to facilitating it, or worry about the effects then you should consider your position very very carefully before continuing.... after all, its not just the contact transportation, its the "after" effects on the child too - I have been quite shocked at times at the changes in the LO's following contact and am really fighting hard to stay positive about contact because of the knock on effects - even at this young age.

Be interested in your thoughts...

Thank you.
We are with the LA. Nothing has been mentioned with regards to staying for contact...if that was the case then I just couldn't do it-I don't think it would be in the best interests of my own children to be without me or for them to be put in that situation.
I do understand the need to be flexible and the emotional positives for the child in me transporting them rather than a stranger but this is a bit of a stumbling block for me as our children would be impacted...either by me having to arrange a child minder or them having to come on the car journeys after their school day and missing out on their after school/summer activities or routines. I realise how precious I am sounding and for that I apologise as I think it is hard to raise these concerns without sounding incredibly selfish.
I guess the problem I have is having to agree in principle to 7 hours 7 days a week in order to get to panel. I could happily accomodate 3 times a week but 7 would have a massive impact and it is wrong to agree when you know you would say no in reality.
I don't think our location helps us in any way either as we are right at the bottom of our LA area meaning there could be a lot of miles involved.
Really appreciating your input...thank you

fostering WILL IMPACT ON YOUR CHILDREN.

Without a doubt - probably in more ways than you could possibly imagine.

I don't think you are being selfish - you are right to consider the effects it will have on your family.

Our contact centre was agreed upon as what is the least distance for the CHILDREN to travel - NOT the parents, so it would be worth checking with them if they employ the same policy.

I will be really controversial here, and I imagine it might cause some negative reactions, but if I had my own children, I would not foster. That is just my opinion based on the very short time I've being doing it. (She ducks for cover awaiting backlash)

That does not mean in any way I think those that do are wrong - its just my opinion and thoughts on what I would do in that situation - the difficulties it would pose me just makes me think that.

i dont agree i have a 10 year old and it has enriched our family

in regards to contact my child comes first if the contact doesn't work for us then they have to change it simple

my son loves being part of a foster family and is proud to be helping children whose parents are "not well"

when the sw is arranging contact she must take into account what comments we already have or they have to look for someone else

well I dont drive so my fc have to be picked up for contact and dropped off after, even that can cause problems if it clashes with school pick ups though.

Fostering does have a massive impact on your own children but like maypole my kids have benefitted and are better people because of it.

I have been a fc for many years and the job is changing and they do seem to be wanting new carers to do more and more.
I would check again what you will be expected to do and what happens if you are unable (if you have no car for example)

throws pillow at p99 (only kidding)

It is such a personal thing fostering with or without children. For me I am hoping it will be a positive thing in my own kids lives - and if it is not then we will simply stop fostering. However back to contact

Our LA also try to make contact closer to where the child is residing, and the parents have to travel more. I have generally been dropping LO off but there is talk of him also being dropped of if I can't do it. I think they are talking worse case scenario about 7 days a week for 7 hours, if it is supervised then that means the social worker would have to make that commitment too

Our LO who has only been here almost a week, is planned to go home in the near future (hopefully before Christmas) and he is only on contact 4 times a week for 2 hours mainly down to the SW not able to plan any more than that.

We live in a different city to the one we foster for. This means we are very often used as a place of safety where parents don't know where their child is placed.

As neither of us drive it's down to social services to sort contact out. It's one of the blessings of not being able to drive TBH, otherwise they'd have us running around like loons.

I have learned over the years that if a social worker can off-load anything they will. Contact is, after all, their job not foster carers.

I really appreciate all of the different views here and thanks so much for responding.

EMIN-I looked into fostering with the view that contact was something that the social worker would handle but it really doesn't seem to be the case where we are and I think that is largely down to lack of resources and funding so I predict there will be more and more pushed onto the foster carers as you say. During the skills to foster course, the social workers have really pushed the issue of transporting the child.

I emailed the LA with my concerns above as well as a couple of other concerns that I am sure everyone with their own children at home worries about and will be having another chat with them tomorrow about it.

I have other concerns too and I must say that all of the reasons we looked into this (because we have a secure, happy and close family unit that could support a LO in need of that) are now becoming the reasons why we may not follow through with it- I'm not sure I want to risk harming that and there seems to be such little reassurance from the social workers :(

lulubooboo- we used to have contact in our home years ago. Social workers would bang on about it being in the childs best interest to have contact where they felt secure etc.

I grew accustomed to doing this even though, sometimes I felt very uncomfortable knowing what the parents had done to their children.

It all came to a crashing end one day when in the middle of a review the social worker said "well now mums back on the heroin it should be a quick court case"

I was horrified that he knew this, had done for months, yet never felt I had the right to know this.

In his words "the worst she'd do is appear spaced out" (yes, while holding a young baby?)
"or pinch stuff from you to sell"

He had a merry dance sorting contact venues out after that meeting

We've made it quite clear to our LA that as new, inexperienced foster carers, we would not be happy having any contact within our own home.

Our FC are taken twice a week to contact by support workers. To be honest, even without having to do this part of the care plan, I still run around like a headless chicken, sorting out my own DC and going to meetings/appointments regarding fc. I'm hoping this will calm down now we're into our second month, cos it feels like I'm juggling ten burning balls sometimes!

lulu, the meetings you have to attend aside from contact can also take up a lot of time as sens has said, I have 9 booked for this week and it was 7 last week and 8 the week before.
I am experienced and have three separate placements but it is a massive committment. I have two weekday days empty till the end of term, every other day there is at least one committment.

We foster with a LA and although I am happy to help out occasionally with emergency transport issues-all day to day transport (nursery,contact etc etc ) is taken care of and my little one is collected and droppped back.She has the same contact worker and it works just fine for me.I also have my own son to transport and could not (and would not) be able to run around my lo to all of the various contacts and special needs groups that she attends.

I am gobsmacked that your approval seems to hang on the fact of whether you can run your potential fosling to their various contacts and schooling/nursery.I do realise that budget constraints mean that money has to be spent wisely but turning down potential foster carers for the reason that they cannot transport a child around seems ludicrous to me.An LA that is prepared to lose committed potential foster carers for that one reason only is one that I would steer well clear of.

We foster out of borough anyway-maybe you could look to a neighbouring borough-they might be more friendly and welcoming and more understanding of your own family commitments.

I agree wholeheartedly with EMIN-social workers will always try to get foster carers to commit to as much as possible-it makes their lives easier.

I also have refused to hold any more contacts or meetings at my home in future due to a bad experience.

Please don't let this put you off fostering-we desperately need good foster carers and (I am sure)you would be a fantastic addition to any LA.

Having your own family should not prohibit you fostering.There has to be a bit of give and take on both sides of the fence-if there isn't how on earth are you going to work with these people???.

Now that I have said my piece I shall crawl back under a rock.

Best wishes and good luck.:)

Hi We are newly approved have 2 dc and haven't had placement yet. It was made very clear to us that we will have to do all the transporting to and from contact as well as to and from school if the children are a bit older. They said its due to financial reasons.They haven't mentioned to us about contact being nearer to the child so will have to ask about that! Could be good news - I was expecting to have to travel miles as we are with neighbouring LA. Am hoping as parents live very local and DC's are 12 and 14 we can work things out. Good luck with it all.

Just awaiting the call from the team manager to discuss all of this-so glad you have all replied with all of your views and experiences. Will let you know how the conversation goes...I am so disheartened with it all.

ok have spoken with the team manager snd she has given some reassurances that they cannot discriminate on the basis of our own family commitments and that we can set out our daily availability in terms of timings and still 'get to panel' successfully.
However, for the first time she has outlined the typcial numbers of meetings with birth parents, social workers and adoptive parents and the normal scenarios in which these take place. I have now got an understanding of what is ACTUALLY involved whereas up until now it all seemed very wishy washy and flowery which is fine if you are becoming a foster carer with no children currently dependent on you.
Decision time...

take your time to think it through, its a biggie, and you don't want it to have a negative effect on your family.

I'm shocked at a suggestion of contact 7 hours a day, 7 days a week. My local contact centre struggles to accommodate my LO for his 3 visits a week at the moment (2 hours per visit) and he's a newborn. (At the moment 7 hours a day sounds like heaven tbh! )

I've done daily contact in the past but this was never for more than an hour or two at a time. I transport to and from contact and it does take up a huge chunk of your day but I use the time baby is in contact to get my shopping done, or just have a rest! The staff at my contact centre are fantastic and look after foster carers really well, getting us drinks and toast and things even though they're really overworked themselves.

I've also supervised contact which I find really difficult, but never in my own home. I hate having to write down how parents are interacting with baby when I'm so biased and nothing they do will ever be done as well as I'd like

Hi

I am a foster carer and I just wanted to say that you only ever seem to hear the negative stories. My experience is entirely positive and I am so glad we took a chance. I have a two year old of my own and a twelve year old foster son. I also work part time in a fairly demanding job. My advice would be to not feel pressurised into taking on a child who you know you will not be able to cope with. We were offered seven or eight children before going with a long term placement that we felt matched our capabilities. We are with a private, not for profit agency and they have been excellent. Just make some educated decisions and you will be fine! (hopefully)

My SW worked with us to fit contact around our kids. LO parents do not work and are very flexible because of this. It does mean some contact is at our house which is a pain but I don't have to ferry LO about I suppose! She is in primary school though so maybe LO age is an issue here?

Regardless if you work for a LA or IFA transport to and from contact is their concern. I would offer to help out if it did not impact on my own children or in an emergency but not routinely.
Fostering does have a huge impact on birth children but largely in a positive way. They realise how lucky they are to have a stable secure family and it brings the dangers of drug abuse home very sharply.
It is also an unusual form of birth control for teenage birth children who are asked to babysit/feed/amuse foster babies as they quickly realise what a life changing experience having a baby would be.