Initial appointment fostering - - they were less than encouraging

[Waytooearly]

I had an initial appointment for fostering today.

I'm divorced, own a nice flat, work full time as a lawyer, and I want to foster. For a long time I didn't bother applying but then I saw adverts saying single carers welcome.

She was very dubious about my plan to continue work as a lawyer and be a Foster carer. I appreciate of course a Foster child will need way more support than your average child. I can go to consultancy work but even then she was like, "Okay but what if you have to be in court but your Foster child needs you?"

My office is full of working parents, and single parents. We are family friendly. However if I make the transition to part time or bank work to accommodate a placement, but then that placement breaks down, then I would be broke.

Is it just not something that single working people can do?

A cure for infertility? What a weird thing to write.

Every single agency has ad copy along the lines of "zomg anyone can totally foster we'll make it work". When in reality it's only available to people who can afford to give up a steady income for a sporadic one.

I've only wasted a few hours on forms, but it was a little obnoxious to have a social worker in my home asking personal questions, only to then tell have her tell me I should wait till I was mortgage free or remarried. Seriously.

waytooearly - sorry, it was, well, way too early when I wrote that

What I meant and really should have explained is that on MN when someone can’t have children they are often urged to think about fostering as if it is interchangeable with adoption which of course it isn’t.

Your experiences aren’t unique at all and they do have a peppy, happy sort of way of trying to make sure they reach people who might otherwise have been under the belief they were unsuitable. Generally though, you need to be a SAHP or work very part time, preferably from home and flexibly. You need a spare room too.

It’s difficult, and you can see why there’s a shortage

Sorry growing, just took it too personally.

I am weirdly upset by the whole thing. I don't know why the person I initially spoke to was so incredibly positive. I fixed up my spare bedroom all nice, brought cakes in for the SW visit, answered personal questions, then just got hit with, "Wow, you are completely unsuitable".

We both work and looked into fostering - we would have gone part time but it was mainly respite (weekends etc) and very short term we were looking at.
I think with a couple it would be easier to both work.
We are now adopters and again we both work part time. Both DCs need a lot of input and appointments TBH but I think you could make it work if you worked part time, flexibly, and had an understanding employer who was happy for you to swap your hours if your child had an emergency.
I work away a lot and I couldn't do that if single.

What do your parent colleagues do if they have an emergency?

You didn’t take it too personally at all. Out of context it looked really rude and I’m so sorry. I just expected you to read my mind

If it helps, similar happened to me when I was exploring adoption, so I do understand. The rejection is horrible.

Tbh it doesnt take much googling or searching on this board to see that you need to have full time availability for foster caring.

Id suggest respite care at the weekends/ holidays.

Or you could say you are only interested in being a long term foster carer for permanent cases where the children will be in care until adulthood, then you don’t have to worry as much about placement gaps.

Well no I went by what the agency actually said rather than googling, but yeah.

The social worker said that even a long-term placement can break down suddenly, for reasons totally out of your control, so you need to have the resources for that financial hit.

Is it just not something that single working people can do?

Sadly yes. Although you could look into supported lodgings caring for 16+ year olds, that can work much better with single people in work.

You would need to have a job that was extremely flexible and enough money to cover you if you had to pick it up and put it down. One single carer I know is a taxi driver which works well but a lawyer is a completely different proposition.

Close friends went through similar... Not work wise but went through loads of the process, including the intrusive questions, only to be told they weren't suitable due to a particular circumstance (related to the child's room, but not easily changeable) which they had been totally upfront about from the start.

It put them off for life, I think, which is a shame.

I totally agree that a lot of the adverts/promotional literature paint an unrealistic view of what is actually required.

In your position, OP, I wonder if it could be worth feeding back your experience to the agency in a constructive way?

I led a team for a while and in response to similar feedback we developed a screening form that our admin staff completed when people phoned to enquire; we did it before arranging an initial visit. It asked things like the size of the property; who lives there; employment status etc. The admin staff didn't make any screening decisions, but the form would be passed onto a SW who'd then arrange an initial visit / phone for more info / counsel the applicant out the process depending on what we found in the form. It saved us a lot of money and time - the drop out rate from initial visits dropped dramatically.

As pp have said, recruiting decent foster carers is so incredibly difficult; it's important for marketing to reach those who'd otherwise exclude themselves inappropriately, but the downside of that is sometimes people get the impression they would be able to foster when in reality they couldn't.

So if you felt able to word your feedback in a constructive way then it could be of real benefit to the service / other applicants in the future.

OP, sorry this has been a bit harrowing for you. Similar thing happened to my sister when she was interested, she’s single too. If it’s any consolation, the personal and intrusive questions get MUCH worse the further into the recruitment process you go. I remember having to answer lots of nosy questions about my mortgage at panel. And DP had lots about his tricky relationship with his family. Which was nice.

I do know a single carer who works directly for a LA and is in a fostering programme where she is paid a “weekly wage” by them - whether she has a placement or not - but they can then refer any and every child who comes onto the system. She’s NOT really allowed to say no, that child isn’t suited to my house or etc. I wouldn’t like that at all but it’s working for her?

I completely agree that respite / short breaks care could be a way forwards. Our LA and our fostering agency are always looking for people to give regular respite care for children with additional needs. You go through the same process as full time foster carers and on occasion respite carers have been know to take on a child full time.

If you did respite you could do so alongside working full time and actually be better off financially!

Hi, some agencies are happy for the main carer to work up to 12 hours a week - as long as you can take a child to and from school and be flexible with your work hours to fit around meetings, visits and time off in the holidays. Check out UK Fostering website
ukfostering.org.uk/