Talk to me about fostering

[dolcegusto]

Me and dh have been thinking about fostering and have made a couple of initial enquiries.

We're thinking maybe younger children for short or long term or respite care.

What are the pros and cons? Is it better to go through a local authority or an agency? Is it harder to get placements (is that the right term?) if you only want younger children? Do you get really attached to the children and is it awful when they leave?

We have 2 dds age 4 and 2, how will it affect them?

Any advice very welcome.

FosterMumToMany.

You are definately not on your own! I have never received reimbursements for beds, bedding, wardrobes, prams, cots etc either, yet I have friends who foster for the same LA as I used to and seem to get money for anything and everything.

As far as your train journeys and hotels are concerned this is for hospital apts. Your LA HAS to reimburse you the travel costs - you may have a fight on your hands for hotel costs though, as LA will say the journey can be done in one day (Never mind the negative effects a long two way journey will have on the child!)

If they refuse to reimburse your travel cost I would advise you to contact Fostering Network, as the LA HAVE to reimburse you.

And of course you are right about the Christmas Party. Our LA decided that children do not need parties anymore. It didn't stop the Social Workers having a Christmas shindig though - and despite having to cut back on Children's Services they still get their wage increase every April.

thing is we do need to stay overnight as so far every appointment has been at 7.30pm.

im fuming. i rang a fellow carer called julie who is under the same LA and i have told her to look at this board. she rang me back absolutely raging with temper.
apparently she has a new placement coming on saturday. this baby will not be provided with a pram a cot or a steriliser. no equipment at all is being provided..nothing!

i told her what you have said about them having to provide things and she is furious so much so that she is getting in her car as i type to go and see the manager in person. she said if he isnt there she will wait until he is.
julie only has her husbands wages coming in so can ill afford to be paying out all this money!

h speaking of money...did you know whether you foster for the LA or not you are entitled to claim working tax credits under special rules.
you need to ring the tax credits helpline and tell them you are a foster carer and wish to claim under the special rules if they have no idea what you are talking about, hang up and ring again.

i was told to do this by my friend( foster carer for a different LA) and its right. we get £92 per week which is the maximum allowance and you can have your claim backdated.
hope this helps some of you.

We're coming to the end our assessment process with an agency, Child Care Bureau who are really excellent. Yes, the LA has to pay more but, frankly, not an unreasonable amount compared to the cost the LA would have to look after a child in residential care. As I see it, the benefit of working with an agency is the level of support provided to carers, with weekly supervision, genuine 24 hr support and a professional approach where training and personal development is considered really important. The agency is really careful about getting a good match between foster family and child - it has to work for everyone to provide a long, stable placement which benefits everyone but most of all, the child.

I suppose I have been shocked at the low level of pay, even from an agency, for what is a demanding job requiring many skills. In many ways it doesn't make financial sense for us to foster and, with our own 3 children, money has to be an important consideration for me to have given up a corporate job.

We go to panel Feb 2011, so the next 12 months could be interesting!

If your LO's apt is 7.30pm then you should definately be allowed to claim for hotel cost. Your LA are being very unreasonable regarding this.

We had to take a foster child to London - 4 hours away - every week for contact with his birth family. LA did not want to reimburse our costs so I told them to find a social worker to transport. After a battle - where I asked Fostering Network to intervene - they relented and agreed to provide mileage allowance for the weekly contact, although did not backdate us the trip we had already made.

If a child is placed with foster carer who has no clothing then the foster carer is entitled to up to £130 clothing allowance - again this is paid out of foster carers pocket and be reimbursed as and when LA get round to it! Tell your friend to make sure she speaks to her link worker to agree the clothing allowance.

As for large nursery items these should also be purchased by the LA. If your friend gets nowhere with the manager suggest she contacts Fostering Network. Nobody should have to buy these expensive items for other peoples children.

At the end of the day it is the LA who is the child's corporate parents and it is they who are ultimately responsible for the child.

god luck rootytoot at panel.

what ages are you hoping to foster?
it is a very demanding thing to do and really the training provided doesnt prepare yu for the reality!

you mention the excellent support 24 hours a day...i wish i had that. i spent 6 hours a few weeks ago trying to get permission to give our lo calpol for her pain. 6 hours! i was passed from pillar to post and eventualy at 3.40am i got permission. the next day we had a meeting and i asked mum to sign a statement giving me permission to administer calpol as and when needed. this child had 8 fractures and was in considerable pain but our team didnt seem to care ajot.
i would love better support.

i really hope you enjoy fostering. it would a dream for me if social services were not involved in the process hahahaha.
aside from them i love it. i really really love it. i could never do anything different.

it can be very hard and very draining emotionally, but it is so so rewarding.

i genuinely hope you love it as much as i do.
let us know how you get on
x

fostermummy let us know how you get on aswell and your friend Julie !

I am probably going to panel in February and am going to do respite to begin with and then hopefully short term.
I'm not too sure what I'll be paid and don't really like to ask as I don't want them to think I'm doing it for the money.
I will be buying a single bed in the next few weeks but really don't want to ask if I'd get anything towards it.
I'm going to look after children between 18 months and 8. I could't cope with too much broken sleep as my ds is 2 and has only just started sleeping through!

you should have been told by this stage what your allowance will be, i would mention it to your sw once you get approval.

i was the same i didnt want to ask either but hubby insisted on knowing.

my friend julie waited for the manager for nearly 3 hours today and was then told he had left via a different exit!
i found this very odd as the only other exit is the fire escape at the rear of the building.
are they really so desperate to save money that they would go as far as avoiding a carer so as to avoid discussing it?
i was actually quite shocked when she told me.

not to worry though as she is going back tomorrow at 8.30am to sit outside and wait for him hahaha.
she is determined to get answers. she said if she doesnt get him tomorrow she will ring the fostering network and kicking up a stink. she also said she will be going to the local press.
lord its no wonder they cant recruit carers around here!

Oh crikey leaving by the fire exit is a bit drastic.
I was given some figures in the initial information pack but they were difficult to make sense of as it seemed to depend on your level of experience and the level of difficulty of the child.
it didn't say anything about respite.

Anyway I manage fine on the money I get now so don't need to earn loads, sure it'll be enough !
Just hope I'm not in your LA as they do sound tight !

RE: 6 hours waiting on permission to give calpol??? Have you not got medical consent? Even tho ours are on a vol basis, we have a form stating medical consent is given and we can seek, get & administer medicine where appropriate.

I guess this whole post just shows how different it can be depending on where you are in the country, who you go with (LA or IFA).

I must say our LA has been brilliant regarding payments & set up costs... just a little wishy washy on the future plan & care for the children!! Wrong way around sadly.

Also - re Tax Credits - went to a briefing by HMRC especially for Foster Carers.

Fostering is classed as 'qualifying work' and if you "earn" less than £25k per household,(from fostering - your allowance & maintenance costs) you can specifiy your income as £0 (tax benefits due to the nature of the work we do) and therefore don't have to pay tax, but should register as self employed with HMRC and pay self employed NI's (about £2.40 per week).

Can claim working tax credit, but not child tax credit. Put that you work 30 hours a week (LOL) and earn £0 self employed. If any other income is received (from elsewhere) this needs to be specified too.

Our claim took about 4 months to be processed, but are now in weekly receipt of WTC - every little helps!!

well i was told to put that the hours worked were 99 a week. i was also told by hmrc that you dont need to register as self employed or pay stamp!!
i have all this in writing from hmrc.

took 3 weeks to be sorted. we didnt need to put self employed just that we are foster carers.
they also state in the letter that even though we are volunteers we qualify for wtc but not ctc.
i was told completely different to you p99!

oh ys we have medical consent but only in a hospital or doctors environment due to her injuries every aspect had to be checked with ss.
i was in tears with frustration by the end of it.
its awful to have to watch a baby screaming in pain and not be able to do anything. by the time i got permission (from nhs direct doctor by the way) the lo was shaking in pain.
ss didnt have a clue whether i could give it or not it was the most stupid thing ever.
thats why i got mum to sign a statement.

We had a 7 year old with arm broken in 3 places (fell of her friends skates). She needed an emergency operation to pin the bones. It only took the Social Worker 3 days to get the consent for anaesthetic signed! LO was in unnecessary pain (although in hospital) for 3 days!

Rule of thumb re medication is if you have medication from the child's doctor - with the child's details on the bottle - you can administer. You cannot administer any form of medication otherwise.

Fostermumto many I have to be honest I am surprised that the LA would accept a statement from the mum, unless THEY had requested it. Around here we cannot even get the child's haircut without signature from parent and counter signature from Social Worker!

the sw was there when i asked for it and she started to open her mouth and i said dont you dare this baby was in pain and i am not going to sit and watch her suffer like that ever again...she closed her mouth and counter signed it.

its disgraceful isnt it how long they keep you waiting.
i love fostering but ss drive me mad they really do.

I got into so much trouble when I was fostering for LA, mainly because I advocated on behalf of the child, as opposed to their social worker and manager.

I loved fostering (and still do after many years) but could not deal with the shit I ( and more importantly the children I cared for) doled out by LA. I decided to apply to PA and I have to say it was probably the best decision I have ever made.

Our new linkworker acts as a buffer between ourselves and the LA. The support we, and the children, receive is far superior.

For example whenever we have had children suffering from trauma, with LA, we have waited an abslute eternity to be seen by the -idiots- proffessionals from Camhs. With Agencies support is on tap. Whenever you or the child need it it is there. And we are talking about real proffessionals as opposed to the shite available, at no cost, to LA's.

hahahaha i agree the support with la is shite.
i am forever getting told off for fighting the lo's corner and am constantly reminded that that is what the guardian is for.
maybe it is but if there at the moment they need fighting for and the guardian isnt, well then im going to fill thier shoes until they are there!

fostermummy how did your friend get on today, did she track the manager down?

Would ring the fostering net work. And would refuse to do any more driving to or from contact until you are what you are owed.

Fostermumtmany - you are bing taken for a ride. My partner and I foster with an agency. It does mean that we get the older and more challenging kids but we have a great renumeration package and fantastic support for the agency link worker. Our current childs' SW (LA) is a waste of space. I don't think she has the faintest idea about our child or her needs and behaviours. All she tells me to do is 'ignore the bad and praise the good'! That just doesn't cut it with an eleven year old.

the manager is now off sick and wont be back until at least wednesday next week!

i dont believe this is true personally!

nanalove,
every child we have had their sw has been a serious waste of space. the current one never ever returns our calls or replies to emails.
when we do finally get hold of her she says she has 49 children in her care and cant be at everybodies beck and call.
the last one was even worse, she was openly hostile not just to us but to the lo's doptive parents and his birth mum.
we breathed a sigh of relief when she was transferred elsewhere but then her replacement was shocking she didnt even know why he was in care! she kept saying he had been abused when he was placed in care by his mum as she was too ill to care for him. sadly she has since died.
we were forever correcting her. fortunately he was adopted 3 weeks after she took over.

i tell you i could tell you some tales that would make your head spin!

my friend is a sw for adults and occasionally she has to deal with childrens services and she always ends up frustrated by them. she says it is always like trying to get blood from a stone trying to get them to do anything.
my lo's sw was off sick last week with a coldsore!!!

Do any other foster carers claim WTC? I have no idea how this works. Do you get it purely from fostering or is OH's wages taken into account?

see the thread WTC self employed etc.

All income you receive will be taken into account - no matter where it is from, but if you foster for your LA you can state your income is £0 - its because its fostering and there are tax benefits - I think the limit is something like £25k which is your maintenance allowance & the allowance for the kids - someone told me as a general rule of thumb, you could foster upto 3 kids and remain below the threshold where you can state your gross profit is £0..

if you are paid a fee you have to declare the fee. otherwise it is fraud. the only part of your fostering money you do not have to declare is the childs allowance.
if you receive a fee or wages then you must declare it.
i was reading an article today of a foster carer who is being investigated for fiddling for not declaring her fees.
it was in bolton i think.
will see if i can find it again
xxxx