dilemma - cut loose from private fostering agency and go with local authority... or shelve fostering to return to 'proper' job

[rootytoot]

quick background - we were approved for fostering Feb 2011, thro' private agency. We have had one emergency placement: two sisters aged 12 and 9, one with severe learning disabilities (we quickly discovered 'moderate' is euphemism for 'severe'), who arrived late on a Friday night. An exhausting, hilarious, rewarding week later, our two delightful girls were moved on to another foster family nearer their home area (we were 1 1/2 hours away) and we will never know what's become of them. Since then, we have been waiting for a phone call to say our agency has another child that would be well-matched for us.

Our agency charges the Local Authority £1,000 per child per week - on the face of it, it's a lot more than in-house fostering provision, although the local authorities carry the resourcing cost for large teams of social workers, HR/management costs, government pensions etc etc). Needless to say we see barely 1/4 of that as our income. Also, inevitably, the referrals in the age group we are approved for (0 - 12 years, max 2 siblings) are more readily placed with local authorities as they are 'easier' to find families for.

Is our agency expensive on the scale of private fostering agencies? Should we cut loose and go through all that approval palava again to go with a local authority?

The danger in going with a local authority is that we are simply 'busy fools' - children placed with us but we will be on v. modest pay. Yes, its hugely rewarding and priceless in one sense - but as a family, we need the income.

Your thoughts appreciated.

WELL IT DEPENDS WHY YOU are fostering i am with an la and i AM NOT A BUSY FOOL AS YOU PUT IT

even though i dont get paid as much we a full all year round somtimes i barley have time to change the sheets.

and as for a proper job well i dont know what you do but the was i foster i do do a PROPER JOB thanks

i think you should get a job outside fostering

you should foster first and formost for the wanting to help children then the pay you seem to be the other way round

Hi rootytoot,

I have no experience of fostering with an Independent agency as we foster with a local authority.I understand your concerns about pay-we all need to pay the mortage or the rent! We earn approx £270 per child per week.That is only in placement time and as with your Independent there is no guarantee of a placement all year round but it is true that you are more likely to receive regular placements with a la.Hard to place and older children are more common with agency as social services will always place a child inhouse if it is at all possible-for many reasons but mostly budget constraints.

If as you say,you earn a quarter of £1,000 then it should be a comparable income with a la but I know every la differs.Do your homework and find out what your neighbouring la's pay.Don't forget that with a la the majority (if not all) of your 'payment' is not taxable as it is termed an 'allowance', but again this is something that you need to look into.

If you do decide to approach fostering with a local authority it is going to take anything up to a year for approval although more realistically 6-8 months.Can you be that long without an income?.I suppose you could get an interim job until approval.

We have been waiting for a new placement for almost 10 weeks as our la has a very successful recruitment drive and seems to manage to keep hold of the majority of foster carers-apparently a rare thing in 2011!!.

Good luck with whatever you decide.If you have any more questions that you would like answered just ask-there are plenty of lovely helpful ladies on here who will respond when they get a minute.:)

Minnerva

Hi rootytoot I can understand that you need to take finances into consideration, we all need to live. You are much more likely to get regular placements with your LA. We take three placements at a time and have only had empty beds for a couple of days in seven years. Our pay is on average £300 per child per week depending on age. All LAs differ though so best to contact yours and find out how they work.
I believe it is possible for agencies to transfer the form F. If that is possible it may cut down on the time it takes for you to be re approved.

Rootytoot - I am sure you realise that the girls were moved back to "in house" carers, as they are the most cost effective resource and snr mngrs in LAs will always push to bring children fostered with IFAs back to in house placements as soon as a vacancy becomes available.

It is of course your decision whether you turn to the LA and as others have said all LAs are different, with differing rates of pay (some pay retainers for 8 weeks) between placements, others don't. Much depends on your offer - if you are thinking of middle years aged children/sibling groups or children with disabilities I would have thought you would be kept busy. The thing is though, LAs can never know when children are needing foster placements, because people don't have crises at any given time in the year. So it can be a bit like "feast and famine" - my experience though is that demand far outstrips supply on a national basis. Mind many children are awaiting permanent fostering and trying to recruit permanent carers for difficult children is a really difficult task.

Ps says she thinks it is possible for agencies to transfer the form F but to be honest in reality I have never known this happen, though I only worked for one LA for 25 years (now retired) so again practice will vary. I think it is ok for factual info to be transferred but assessment is something that canot be copied as far as I am concerned, as there is more to it that just writing down what people tell you.

Good luck anyway, whatever you decide to do. Incidentally you can only be registered with one LA though you can shop around those reasonably close to you, to see what the response is.

Rootytoot, I totally understand your point about the money. I'm a single carer, approved for one child, and as my local authority only pays £200 per child per week I couldn't afford to pay even my mortgage on that.

However, I spoke to the benefits agency and now claim Income Support and Housing Benefit which just about gets me by. I have no money for luxuries but I'd still rather be doing this than the job I previously had!

And whilst I agree with Maypole to some extent that fostering isn't something you go into for money, it's also not right to expect someone to take on such a demanding role for nothing. Yes, the sense of satisfaction you get from helping change a child's life is priceless but it won't stop the bank taking your house back if you can't pay the mortgage...

Re the transferring of the form F. Several years ago dh and I had some real problems with our LA and we were thinking about moving agencies. We approached another LA who were very keen for us to start asap. They said in certain cases they would buy the form F from another agency. In the end we were persuaded to stay with our own LA so I don't know what would have happened.
That is the only time I have heard of the form F being transferred. I think NanaNina is right and if this does happen it is quite rare.

Hi Scarlet you spoke about claiming income support and I wondered which was best. I am registered as self employed for fostering and because of that I can claim child tax credits and working tax credits. It does boost my income up if I only have one child which has been the case for a while now as the little boy I have is quite needy.

I should say the child tax credits are for my own children and I am a single carer

Thank you for all your helpful comments - mapole1, I only use the term 'proper' job to mean 'conventional' job. I agree fostering is a fantastic role, and one that I want to do for all the right reasons and certainly not for the money! But it is true that it is a job that is under-rated which is why it is easy to become a 'busy fool' in that the pay goes nowhere near recognising the challenge of the job.

We're on the Worcs/Glos border and their rates are 2/3 the rate of the private agency we're with, which pays just under £300 per child per week (fees and allowance together). Worcs tells me we'll have to do every single stage of the approval process again, which sounds ridiculous when they would currently place children with us via our agency if the need arose. Glos have been much more sensible, and will accept certain stages of our approval process - and have arranged to come for a visit and a chat 4 days after I rang them, so we'll be interested to find out more.

Thanks again - still undecided, have conventional job interview this week for a full-time role which would be good... but not as good as fostering!

We're going to panel this month with Glos LA, rootytoot, and have been mostly very pleased with the assessment process etc. If you want to PM me I'd be happy to chat more!

Hi,
We were told if you are with a PA and have a child placed with you from a LA, you can swap to that LA whilst the children are in your care, which would mean a minimum amount of fee loss. You still have to go through some of the process though.

thanks bottersnike...may take you up on the offer, will see how we go with Glos visit tomorrow! Ironically, just after I posted the first message, we had a call and are being considered at the moment for two little ones through our private agency, but waiting to know more in the next couple of days. Seems you wait for a bus for ages, then two come along at once...