mum pregnant - 2 in care

[anji9012]

Hi,
I have 2 foster boys, 21 months and 4. their mum has just announced she is pregnant AGAIN (2nd time in 5 months, was advised to get rid of last one for boys sake) she says she is keeping this one. I know she would be reaccessed as to her capability etc, but if the baby was put into care, would it automaticly be placed with me if I still have the boys?

This mother may not necessarily be re-assessed. If the circumstances are really of concern, there is usually a pre-birth case conference and the baby can be taken into care at birth.

What is the basis on which you are fostering these boys. If it is short term I would think you would have enough on your hands without another young baby. However if the care plan is to try to keep these siblings together you may be asked to care for the new baby, so that they are together whilst waiting for a permanent placement (though in reality it is very very difficult to place a sibling group of 3 on a permanent basis. If the boys are placed permanently and all is going well, you may be asked if you are interested in taking the new baby. This is normal practice and it is up to the foster carer, really. If this is the case I would think long and hard about whether you could cope.

Hi, I have been asked to care for them short to long term, while parallel planning is going ahead, it seems that the likely hood of them returning to mum is low, given results of various accessments. but you never know! so it my be adoption route

Similar case to yours the elder children were to be adopted but was put on hold to allow them to go as a sibling group. You would be asked to have dc3 if there you had capacity. I do feel it's unfair on the elder ones but it's fairer than splitting a sibling.

Tbh if the older ones weren't returning home it's unlikely she's improved that much in such a short period of time

up until now, it has been a big thing to keep the boys together, so I'm not sure that will change. but we will see. it is early days and things can change at any point.

I was in a similar position and agreed to take on a newborn sibling. It turned out caring for the children wasn't the problem - parents were MUCH more difficult when new baby was removed and took it all out on me, even though we'd known each other a considerable length of time by then.

It ended up that the siblings were split up anyway so may have been easier to do this at the very beginning.

thank you, I needed to get some idea of what may happen