Grandparents fostering - any experience/ knowledge.

[MrsWeasley]

Hi all, long time member here but a newbie on fostering threads. A short while ago I was asked to take in my grandchildren under a child protection issue. We've been asked if we would consider longer term fostering arrangement but I work, initially I was promised help with expenses and childcare but now that isn't forthcoming, they appear to be changing or making up the rules as they go along. SS have asked me to reduce my working week which I'm reluctant to do as it could turn out to be a temporary arrangement I have financial commitments and other children to consider. Anyone else experience anything similar?

We fostered three of our grandchildren for 8 months under similar circumstances. You should get fostering payments, we had to be assessed as foster carers and go to panel to be approved. This didn't happen until 4 months into the placement but we were told afterwards that they would have stayed with us regardless as no other placement for the whole family was available. We both work full time but my husband ended up giving up work as there was so much transporting to and from school, medical appointments etc we couldn't both work. We found it very draining both emotionally and physically and definitely went into it with 'rose tinted spectacles,' we quickly realised that we just do not have the stamina or patience that we had 20odd years ago when our own family were young and underestimated the damage that had already been caused to the children and the lack of support that SS were willing to give both us and them. In our experience as the children were safe SS had very little contact, assumed that we would 'just get on with it' and took very little notice of the observations/concerns of the children's behaviours,health and wellbeing that we reported. The children have now been placed in long term care and unsurprisingly their longstanding issues have caused further problems for the foster carers. This sounds very negative but we didn't get the support we were promised and that the children desperately needed, ask lots of questions and think very long and hard before agreeing. When the decision was made that they couldn't return to their parents, as hard as it was, we had to admit that we could not foster them long term. We do have a good relationship with the children and now have them for weekends and respite which is enjoyable for us all.

Thank you Hamptonedge, I appreciate your reply.