Fostering with a young family

[Miltonglade]

A friend of mine is very interested in fostering. She has a 5 year old and twin 3 year old children. She is a stay at home Mum and in her 50's. She is an energetic and very organised person whose is a great Mum and I think she would make a wonderful Foster Mum. Her husband is very hands on as well makes a great Dad. Would she be allowed to foster with a young family do you think?

Every council does things differently so you would need to phone them. They may be reluctant to assess you for this due to the amount of work an assessment takes unless it will meet a specific need they have. Often foster carers will so respite for each other. Short breaks, where people do regular short term respite tends to be children who have disabilities.

A couple up the road from me fostered two or three teenagers at a time when they had their own 3 year old.
They were then asked to do emergency fostering of a baby, and then adopted her.
The husband left a year later but the mum continues to foster teenagers.

It's not all doom and gloom, but you have to consider carefully the needs of your children. It isn't like having another child- it's far more intense. You don't necessarily get the information you need ahead of time. Sometimes the information simply isn't known. The case I referred to, it was the child's first placement so they didn't know to expect those behaviours. The issue was their reluctance to move him because, essentially, there was nowhere to move him to.

We started when my youngest was 7, and always took children younger than ours. It worked well for us, for about 10 years. I burnt out, however, as the level of need began to outstrip my energy and emotional resilience.

You are dealing with big, big issues- secondary trauma where you take on/reflect trauma the child has experienced; loss when children move on; abuse from birth parents; constant observation including unannounced visits from social workers; meetings; health care, school etc.

It's all the mundane stuff plus regular meetings, record keeping. Add in extra attention and all the emotional energy that comes with supporting your DC and FC through traumatic events, past events, incidents and accidents.

Yes I was alluding to what Pickledwalnuts said. There is huge pressure to make placements and I have seen sexual abuse and violent assault on much younger birth family children as a consequence. I have had some related roles where I have worked very closely with foster careers and SWs and, despite the professionalism often seen, came to the conclusion that the system is not fit for purpose for many reasons.

I agree TS. Sad- and I don't regret what we did- but it's extremely finely balanced a hair's breadth away from disaster. You need to be very clear what protections you have in place. Things like the option to move your D.C. to a grandparent for a few days, if something kicks off. Not being financially dependent on fostering income- that's a huge issue, as it means that the people available are limited by their affluence. However, neither do you want carers staying in a sub standard situation because they can't afford to leave.

I'd love to foster parent and baby placements, but after our last experience my husband won't hear of it. And truth be told, he's right. It nearly killed me last time, and I'd have previously put myself in the category of carers who were savvy and knew how to stay safe!

That said, I'm sure some Social Services departments are better. Ours wasn't the worst, but it wasn't the best either.

Hmm yeah it’s that balanced a hair width from disaster I recognise. I think that means you can never quite future prof any placement. Glad you don’t regret it. It’s something I hope to do in the future when mine are older but it might be my dh who doesn’t want that happening - think he is more jaded than me.

@Miltonglade

grumpyhetty - thank you for your message - did you not consider fostering a long term foster child (obviously yours was pretty long term but one that would definitely stay until young adulthood to prevent this change in dynamic affecting your children?

It isn’t that simple. She was supposed to be a relatively short term placement when she first came, then social services said she would never go back to her parents, then her parents circumstances changed and she went back to them. It was the right decision for her but hard on my DC.

Our first placement was short term/emergency. Turned into bridging to adoption. Then bridging to family placement. They were away a year then came back and stayed 5 more.

Next placement, bridging to adoption, 6-9 months, but was actually two years due to a complication in their family circumstance.

There's no certainty in fostering.

The other issues my friend faces (along with having 3 young children ) when wanting to foster is that her children are from Surrogate Mothers do you think this could cause problems with her own children (in that the foster child is not with her birth Mother?) and make her own children question there own background more than they would have done before a foster child joined them? I would say that the SM had no biological link to the 3 children the father is their biological father.
Also , they tried to adopt 7/8 years ago with a LA in another area of the country they were living in then but eventually fell out with them (and the LA removed them from their books) after they pulled out of matches when they found on both occasions the LA had not been honest at all.

The first match went so far as to introductions and the second as far as being passed in the matching panel.

No adoptive agency would take them on after this (when they contacted the LA they were very negative) it seemed so unfair as the LA were crap tbh.

Sorry that's when a new adoptive agency contacted the LA the LA were very negative and they couldn't adopt after this.

Ok, they aren't going to get on well with social services. And they aren't going to get on well with foster children if they were that picky about adoption children.

I'm not going to engage with this any more, it's filling me with rage. We put ourselves through hell to do the best we could for our foster D.C.
Your friend turned down two adoption opportunities, at the last minute causing chaos for foster carers and children. Those kids will have been waiting another 6 months to a year, possibly missed their window and ended up in care permanently.

I've also lost sympathy with you, trawling for support about a situation which isn't yours, and which you don't know a lot about.

Sorry to be harsh, but I've spent time and effort sharing my perspective in order to protect a potential fostering family from making mistakes. I'm not spending anymore.

picklemewalnuts I am sorry this has upset but to be honest you have misinterpreted what happened. The first child that they didn't progress with was so out of control and violent during introductions they didn't think they would have been able to keep her safe and in fact the fostered parents said their marriage had broken down and they would not be fostering anymore after this child and they had been fostering for 20 years. This child needed therapeutic care not adopting.
The 2nd adoptive opportunity they went as far as panel where they found out paperwork had not been updated and there were 10 areas of failures. They had lied about some information and their social worker had failed to look deeply enough into the situation. They were very unlucky and yes the children were even more unlucky to be so badly let down - the end

I've been feeling quite annoyed too reading your info about "your friend"

Do you have any idea the damage that is done to a child in care when their placement breaks down? This is why throughout this thread my advice is that now is not the right time for fostering for you. I coud see & feel it a mile off that placing a child in your family has much potential for breakdown. You've confirmed that with your updates.

Please please leave fostering to the side for now and just concentrate on the 3 children from SM

They were very unlucky and yes the children were even more unlucky to be so badly let down - the end

Wtf type of cold hearted statement is that?

Twistered - If you read the messages she wrote they weren't ever placed with her friend. She met the first child in intros but it was not taken further and the child needed therapeutic care not adopting and the second time never even met the children but pulled out at panel - before you judge people read the facts carefully. The first child was not adoptable as she was and the the second time they were lied to which came out at panel. No children had their lives ruined through what happened.

I'm aware no child was placed with them.

My concern is that there is huge potential for placement breakdown if a child was to be placed with them. They've already unsuccessfully been down the route of trying to adopt. Then went the surrogate route and the mum is now in her 50s, has a 5 year old and three year old twins. I can't but wonder what on earth they are thinking to be now wanting a foster child.

Tbh this thread has just upset me so much as I've seen so many children be damaged when foster placements breakdown. The op situation is just screaming disaster to me and I'm allowing myself to get annoyed hence the rant earlier

Twistered - I understand your concern having 3 year old twins and a 5 year old is pretty heavy without bringing a foster child into the equation as well. If they do approach an agency chances are this will be a stumbling block and they all will decide the needs of an additional child who needs so much time and attention will be too much for the family.

I have sgo for my grandson age 6 and I became a foster carer in November 2020

I think if she understands the demands she will be fine . I'm 57 and have sgo for my grandson, I have a 2 and 3 year old in my care since December