want to foster but receiving conflicting advice

[imeverywoman]

Hi. A lttle bit about myself. My husband and I started the fostering process about 3 years ago with the local LA. The process was long with intermittent contact from the social worker. Sometimes we wouldn't hear from SW for 3 months. After a year and not much going on we wrote to LA and asked what was going on. We got no response so we said that if we didn't hear from someone within 28 days then we would withdraw from the process. We didn't hear. From LA so that was that. However, we really want to foster as there is a major need downm here in sussex so we approached the la again and they said we could restart the process and they have new SWs so things won't take so long. They toldus we could do age 0-8 as we have a ddd of 10. However, I have approached a couple of independant agencies and they are saying we would be better off with much older teenagers 12 plus. Hubby and I don't know what to think. I'tm in 2 minds about going with LA because I don't have much confidence in them. But I also heard that we are more likely to have placements with a LA rather than private agency. But I also hear private agencies give better suppor and complete assessment quicker. I will be giving up a well paid job to become a caareer fc. I don't want months without a young person to care for as we do have bills to pay. But I have lost faith in the LA.Any advice anyone please?

Hi.. welcome

Briefly... (time for my bed).. better for your own bc to be the oldest, so second the advice that 0-8 good age range...

IFA's - for sure, better support and probably quicker assessment, ..

Hi imeverywoman you need to weigh up the pros and cons of both. Your LA may have pulled their socks up and you may well get very good support from them or from a neighbouring LA, many of us do get perfectly adequate support.

What age are you interested in caring for? If you decide the older age you could also do that with your LA so long as there is two yrs difference.

On the whole it seems that the agencies will have the harder to place children. This may be why the agencies have suggested you do older children as the LA's will possibly be able to place the younger ones.

You will on the whole get more placements with your LA but it is worrying how incompetent they were with your initial enquiry.

Also for financial reasons LA's are bringing children back from agencies as soon as they have a space.

If I didn't have my own children 14 and 11, I would love to have teenagers but I think with the problems they inevitably come with and the possibility of drugs and alcohol and sex etc I will maybe wait until they leave home
Good luck whatever you decide to do xx

Can I just say I would strongly strongley advise against having any placements older than your own child or to near their Age

The life experince these children have will be vastly diffrent from your child sorry to be crude and I don't want to put you off but the ability of your child to fight off bullying or advances from a older child might prove diffcult

I have a 11 year old my age range is 0-6 and I won't be raising the gae range anytime soon because he is so much older and bigger I am confident he won't be bullyied,co arced or led down a bad road I would be so confident about a placement of a teenager.

And to be honest I am shocked the ifa are encouraging you to take on a child older than your own.

Most of our teen carers either have no children or have adult children

imeverywoman - there was a thread here a while ago which you may find interesting - it's about a 13y. old placement who was older than own kids www.mumsnet.com/Talk/fostering/1123941-When-to-call-it-a-day

Thanks everyone for your advice and wise words.
I was starting to doubt myself when 2 agencies said I should consider older children. I will read that thread that you recommended Glenshee.
I have another agency called Families For Children coming for a chat with us all next week and a home visit from the LA in February half term. I will also contact the next door LA wich is far larger as it is a county council and see what they say.
Thanks again everyone.

I have to agree with Bonnie - I suspect the IFA may be encouraging you to take older children because they're the children most likely to be placed with an agency.

And like Buster's LA, mine too has a surplus of carers at the moment - some new carers have been waiting months already with no placement.

I seem to recall someone on here (I think Nananina) advising someone else who was considering an IFA to ask that IFA to be absolutely honest about how many children they'd placed with their carers in the past 6 months. And whilst the assessment process is gruelling with LA (I've not heard of it as bad as your experience before though!) I think it goes some way to preparing you for the downside of fostering - all the paperwork and red tape and w a i t i n g... !

Hi Everywoman I think all the posts in response to yours have been excellent, so I can't add much more. Yes definitely agree that IFAs are talking of older child as they know that they are more likely to be asked by the LA for a placement. IFAs are businesses and recruit carers quickly and offer good support etc and pay fcs more than the LA but this is all charged to the LA, meaning less money in the budget for "in house" carers and the children they foster. IFAs make vast amounts of profit and it depends whether you want to line the pockets of these entrepeneurs or foster for the LA. Oh and it is not a good idea for your 10 year old to lose his/her place as the eldest in the family.

I think your first experience of flagging up your interest in fostering to the LA was disgraceful and they should be very glad that you are giving them a second chance so to speak.

I think a big problem is going to be around you giving up work to foster. As someone else has said, no short term carer can be guaranteed to have a child in place for 52 weeks of the year. Some LAs pay a small retention fee between placements but I'd imagine that has been phased out now with all the cuts.

The only way you could be sure of 52 weeks payment is by long term/permanent fostering, and I think this is very risky when you have never fostered before. Also the LA are urging permanent foster carers to apply for a Residence order because it's cheaper for them. It means you share Parental Responsibility for the birth parents, and the allowance is discretionary, whereas with fostering it is mandatory. Also it means no more sw involvement, which some may see as a good thing!

To be honest I think the best way for you to go at this stage is to think about respite care. This is to care for a child whose foster carer's need a break (can be done at weekends) and some LAs have schemes where you can foster on a respite basis for children coming straight from home, to give their parents who are struggling (maybe with a lot of children/financial issues/domestic violence etc) Again this can be done at weekends. Some respite carers foster 2 weekends in 4 or whatever. You can say what you could manage. Again there may be a long wait before you are actually "used".

The reason I am suggesting this is:

a) It would allow you to "dip your toe in the water" so to speak as far as fostering is concerned, and you would get a better feel of what it's like to look after someone's elses child.

and

b)You could keep your job.

We used to do this a lot for people in your position in the LA for which I worked and it worked well. Just a thought for you to consider. You do however have to through the same assessment and training as for short term fostering, as respite care is still underpinned by the Fostering Regulations.

Happy to help further if necessary.

Thank you all for your advice.
What my husband and I have decided is that we will go through the process with our LA again. If and when we get approved which will probably another year :o I will ask my employer who happens to be the same LA for a sabbatical for around 6 months or I'll Child Service Tea if I can do respite/emergency care initially.
We'll be meetin with the SW who will be our case worker next month, so i'll put these queries with him/her.

Hello. Just wanted to add that I took a 5 month break from work (I was also employed with same la) when we were firstly approved as foster carers.

This worked really well for us as I loved my job and was nervous about giving it up for fostering (but I have not returned to work as I have discovered that fostering is the best, most rewarding and hardest sometimes...job ever!)

Good luck with it all x

Hi "Imeverywoman",

All the people have given you really good advice.

I'd just like to touch on what you've said you've decided and the advice from "threeandcounting". I think you've touched on something; doing respite care initially might be the best bet. Or taking a sabbatical as you say and start doing emergency and respite.

People are right to say that Independent Fostering Agencies will place the hardest kids to place with you - I work for TACT Fostering & Adoption (I'm not a social worker). The local authorities we work with across the UK contact us to place children and young people they cannot place for different reasons. It may be that at the time, they may have too many children to place and cannot cope with the demand or it may be that they haven't got the right foster carers living near enough the area where the child or young person need to be placed.

The foster carers I've spoken with who used to foster with LAs have always told me the support provided by TACT's better. I'm sure a lot of LAs are good, but unfortunately some of their social workers cannot give the same attention that IFAs can due to their caseload. Our social workers don't have more than 12 families at a time - and this is the maximum. Some LA's social workers have more than 40 cases at a time...

As fostering's a complete change of life, I think trying it slowly would be a really good way for you and your husband to see if you really like it. At least, this way you can return to your jobs if you decide to take a sabbatical.

Take care and Good luck :)

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