What happens when children are taken into care?

[WyfOfBathe]

Sorry if this is an inappropriate question as it's just out of curiosity really. It's something I've wondered about as there have been a few children I've known over the years who have been taken into foster care unexpectedly.

I know that children go from their parents to the foster carers, but what happens in between? Do they have to go to a children's service office or somewhere before a foster carer is found? Does somebody help them to pack up their clothes, toys, etc?

It can completely depend on the circumstances behind them being taken into care and how receptive the parents are to it. Every situation is completely different.

Some children go to carers in an emergency with nothing and everything has to be bought for them. Some are able to take clothes and special toys etc. Sometimes it takes time to find a carer and the children have to hang about in an office for a while and sometimes they are taken straight to a carer.

I'm not sure what they do these days.

When I was put into care at 6 months in 1969, my parents were getting.rid of me... Apparently I was a cry baby.. well the report says... The parents say... Despite slapping, throwing, hitting, he won't stop crying (now paraphrased) you take him.

I'd say... Unless you really have no other choice, suck it up, and raise them.

I know, if I ever had to choose between putting.my kids in care, or stopping g work to raise them... I'd stop work, cos I ain't putting kids what I went through.

Without more information, and specifics, its hard to say, tho for me personally, it's death before care.

Not all kids are fostered, and spend time in homes with strange kods.

There can be (depending on how it works now) resoite. Where a child will be fostered for a short period to give the parent a rest.

Thanks. The two children who I know most closely it was very unexpected (think single parent suddenly arrested or similar). I know that for other children, there's probably more planning, eg if there's been a social worker already involved.

@macblank I'm sorry to hear your story To be clear, I'm not going to put my children into care. It was just idle wondering about a few people I've know over the years.

@WyfOfBathe

Poor munchkins. Are they friends of your kids? Family and friends of the children can put themselves forward to care for them, which in most cases is preferable to them being placed with unknown foster carers or in a residential setting. Is this something you would consider? You would get financial help.

There are emergency foster carers who will take children at a moment's notice short term and childminders who can be called to look after them until they are available.

We've taken foster children in emergency situations. I've had children collected by the social worker straight from their school and brought to my home. I've had them brought here from their family home by a social worker. One Christmas Eve we have driven to a service station an hour away from our home and met a social worker who did a handover with us. None had clothes or anything with them, so it was a quick trip to Tesco to buy supplies. Needs must in an emergency.

@FurrySlipperBoots yes they are, but this happened a few years ago when we really weren't in a position to look after any more DC. It came to mind again as DH and I are thinking about what we want to do in the future and we are musing on the idea of fostering.

Sometimes the SW will collect the children from school or the home and take them to the foster carers. Sometimes the parents will pack the suitcases and bags and hand everything over, and sometimes it’s an emergency and they don’t have anything. Sometimes the parents refuse to hand things over, sometimes the children have very little. Foster carers often have to go out and buy new clothes and shoes etc for children. Many have stocks of toothbrushes and toys for children placed in am emergency. I have done many a mad dash round Tesco to buy pyjamas etc. Once me and a couple of colleagues with dc went home and packed up some of our own children’s clothes and soft toys to take to foster children.
It really depends on the circumstances. Sometimes it is planned and the child meets the carer first, and sometimes its an emergency.
The social worker is usually the one that removes the child or collects them from school/ hospital and takes them to the foster carer. Foster carers are amazing and wonderful people, I am always grateful to them for how they care for these children, and they are usually lovely and caring to the social worker as well and offer cups of tea and a clean loo to use.

I remember a few years ago when I was doing my teacher training two sisters came to wait in my classroom for the social worker to come and take them into care. They were taken away from their usual class so they didn’t see their mum when she came. The head teacher explained to her what was happening. The nursery nurse who they knew stayed with them and tried to play with them, The older girl was quiet and withdrawn she must have known something wasn’t right. Her little sister didn’t seem to understand. I don’t know what happened to them but I think of them often.

There's usually emergency foster families who take children at any time like a stepping stone for even just a few hours.
If they have no items of their own, this family would provide them with what they need to some extent.
Then they will be placed with a full time foster family for as long as needed etc.
Children may be kept in the foster system (perhaps chance of biological parents/family life) or adopted.

Children who are planned to be taken away (eg. The mother is unfit - drugged up etc) the unborn baby would have arrangements made for the time of the birth/when suitable to leave the hospital to go straight to the full time foster family, siblings are placed within the same home where possible so if a druggy has a child who's taken, often any other children born afterwards will go to same home to be raised as siblings and they will try to place with an adoptive family together also.

Obviously this is basic but hopefully you get the meaning.

As above, often the children are taken by the social worker straight to a foster carer. Either an emergency carer or, if they have one on their list with space for the right age, then straight to the foster carer.

(Who then, in my experience, texts her friend to ask if she has any clothes stashed away of the right size/age!)

My children live with foster carers. Before they were placed with then I met with them, then the children met them and visited their homes, then on a specified day their SW picked them up and took them to live there.

I can say, hand on heart that my children's carers are utterly wonderful and absolutely the best people to care for my children until there comes a point when I am able to do so again.