Housing fostered children differently

[stopandstandup123]

Not a foster carer but interested so please be gentle if I am not going in the right direction with this.

With local authorities being strapped for cash, why can we not use large central empty properties in each town to house children in foster care from around secondary school age onwards. I am not talking about the horrific care homes of old with their stigmas, harsh regimes and abuse hidden away in remote places. I hope we have moved on from that towards kindness, support and life skills building in a nurturing environment where children are listened to and part of the planning of the service to them. There may be children still at risk of harm not able to come into a foster home due to shortages of carers and this could be a workable alternative. It would keep children close to their communities.

If the right skilled adults - social worker, support worker, care worker - were put in place (24 hour round the clock), a larger property may be a great place to build those independence skills and life long peer support networks. (Similar to Halls of Residence in Uni's but with more support/staff as the children would be younger). We have a massive shortage of foster carers and many due to leave in the next few years due to retirement.

Just a thought.

Also a Foster Carer, it is not something you could do for money. There is no money to be made. We have one yp who lives with us and if you equate it to an hourly rate it works out at £1.61 per hour and that is just for my the one of us who is the main carer, the other in effect doesn't "earn" anything. How that can be for money is quite unrealistic.

I've just remembered a family on our fostering course. One teenage DC, at state grammar, soon to go to Oxbridge, OK that's not private but pretty high powered. Any LAC coming to them would be unlikely to be at a grammar school or bound for a high powered university. But they would encourage their education.

Large children's homes don't work. End of.

Most LEAs are /have changed to small 2-4bed units.

We are recently approved foster carers and our daughter goes to private boarding school.
Things have changed over the years and a lot of what people "believed" to be true about fostering is not anymore. Anyone who is genuinely interested in becoming a foster carer should go to one of the information evening and speak to someone about their own situation. It maybe that there is a place for you in the team, perhaps offering just emergency or respite care, or that your circumstances are absolutely fine for long term or short term foster caring.
They have shortened the time it takes to assess people, although it is a fairly intrusive process still, ours took about 4/5 months. I have to add to what others have said though, it definitely isn't a well paid "job" so I doubt many people do it for the money

I was a foster child, many years ago. In the 1960s and 1970s Children's Homes had a bad reputation and fostering - however bad, and mine was fairly bad, was a better alternative.
Many teenagers go into Care after neglect and abuse and the chronic lack of foster carers for teenagers means that there will always be the need for Children's Homes. These vary a lot in quality.

We have fostered for many years and all of our birth children are privately educated including the eldest at boarding school. The LA have never had an issue with it.