Your views on fostering

[maypole1]

Ladies please take a moment to read t his and please email with your views.

We all know how frustrating fostering can be and the seeming needs of the parents mostly outweighing the needs of the child this is your chance to have your say.

The Department is currently working to develop a charter for foster care. The foster carer, local authority and fostering service all play a vital part in helping children and young people have a happy and safe childhood with the opportunity to achieve their full potential.

We want the charter to unite foster carers, local authorities and fostering services around a shared understanding. We hope that the charter will help keep existing foster carers and attract new ones.

The aim is that local authorities, foster carers and fostering services will 'sign up' to the spirit of the charter and build on it locally

by talking about where things are working well and not so well
by sharing experiences and good practice.
Please tell us what matters to you and what you feel should be in the charter. We welcome your views on the draft charter until the end of January 2011. Please send comments on the charter to Rachel Taylor.

A copy of the draft charter and a letter from the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children and Families Tim Loughton MP about the charter are available to download from this page.

Contact details

Rachel Taylor
Email: [email protected]

Hi anyone

What does LA means? is it Local Authority?

I am new to fostering

Yes, ECD1970 it is Local Authority

I am in the us so it may be different to the uk but a sw friend reckons 90percent of foster carers foster for the money.she says often the kids go to a worse situation than that with their parents.they are keen to get them away from the parents unlike in the uk.
It has really made me rethink my position on children being taken into care.I can see why they try to keep them with parents when possible if this is even sometimes the case.

Maybe you do not get paid as much in the uk but here 400 a week is the normal rate I understand.
It is disturbing to think many will foster for the money primarily.

cherrysodalover the average wage for a local authority foster carer can be as little as £100 a week you then get extra allowance for the child from which you are expected to feed cloth, put savings away pay for christmas holiday summer holidays all the starting up kit, birthday parties buy toys

Every time a new child arrives I often have to do school uniform a whole wardrobe or cloths and and whole toy box full of toys unless the child is coming from another foster carer

Bottles, potties the list is endless we ended up needing to buy nearly £700 worth of stuff for our fc whose here now

Often like most carers holidays are topaz up with our own personal money so

I resent the idea we foster for money
As Catharine Tate would say how very dare you

Oh no I am sure you do not do it for the money.apologies for confusion
Just reporting what a sw friend has observed in the us.I was horrified.
My parents met a lovely couple who are fostering two kids and they gave up their jobs asbit paid better so I guess there must be different systems even in the uk.
I always assumed everyone did it for the love of it so I was shocked to hear that here most do it for the money.apparently la s are incentivized financially to take kids into care.
It made me sad.she said often the kids are better off living with the abuse than the foster carers.....that is here.

she said often the kids are better off living with the abuse than the foster carers WHAT??????

I think that is one of the most misguided & saddest things i have seen written for quite a while. There is a small percentage of FC's that foster for the wrong reasons, I'm sure but for a SW to make such a comment that lo's are better off with their abusive parents , whether that is in the USA or not is so unnaceptable. That SW is obviously in the wrong job!!

Sadly I've heard a few horror stories myself in the past couple of weeks about carers in my own LA - and we're one of the lowest paid in the country!! One couple has now been stopped from fostering but the others haven't.

(Maybe I shouldn't describe them as "horror" stories - they were doing things like making the FC have their own cutlery rather than use the "family" cutlery, and not letting them buy their own clothes. Things I'd never dream of doing personally but which hardly seem worse than the abuse most children in care suffer at home)

Well I agree it is very sad but she is very trustworthy and has had ten years in the job.I was also flabbergasted.the point is that here in the states they take kids into care over the smallest thing. She found a kid being kept in a broom cupboard amongst other horrors by the carers.this is her opinion and she has seen more foster care situations than I have. I won,t even tell you what a leading shrink said to another friend regarding the consequences of kids going into care.off the record of course.every homeless person he deals with virtually,has been through the care system
The point is that here in the states,it would seem many foster for the wrong reasons.glad you guys are doing it for the right ones

cherrysodalover to be honest i think the issue may be in the states is that is foolishly easy to adopt and foster their with virtually no checks

just take the Madonna situation she and guy would have been refused to be allowed to adopt in the uk
so she used her us citizenship to adopt.

their would be very few celebs able to adopt in the uk due to their lifestyle and press intrusion, their in ability to look after the child themselves and heavily reliance on nannies ect due to their travelling for acting jobs or pop careers we

the way the us system is and the lack of welfare system means adoption is pushed even when its not correct i also know that the amount of children that us foster parents are allowed to have is virtually unlimited

in the uk their are very strict rules on how many children you are allowed to have and who is allowed to share a room with whom.

how ever i do not agree sw removed children for trivial things in the us.
sadly in the uk we keep children with abusive parents to keenly or place them back with parents who have shown little or no improvement

Yes I think the uk is at the other end of the spectrum.....but I now see why they try so hard to keep them with their parents if the consequences of going into care are so negative often in the long term.
I think good foster carers do a brilliant job but I always assumed it was the best for children and these insights from professional social
Workers have given me a new insight. I have more empathy for why sw s try so hard to not remove unless it really is the lesser of two evils.....in terms of the long term impact of being in care,as opposed to being with your parents.