Thinking about fostering

[guardiansofthegalaxychocs]

Does anyone foster with young birth children and continue work part time? Is this possible? We have been wondering for a few years about fostering teens.

My job is 4 school days a week during term time (not a teacher or TA so fairly flexible). My husband works full time but also fairly flexible (generally at home 2-3 days a week regardless of covid).

We’d love to foster but not sure if working would rule us out.

Its certainly not ideal and will depend on the flexibility you have. There is no hard and fast rule but there are considerable time demands for meetings with social workers and other care professionals. These will be expected to be your priority not your other job. Obviously you can share these responsibilities with your spouse. Speak to a couple of local agencies and your Local authority and make it clear what your limitations are and see if they are prepared to work with you.

Working won't rule you out but could make it more tricky as often there are school issues and the young person may be home a lot. The bigger issue is your own birth children and the impact on them of having to share their parents with teens who need a huge amount of input and may then move on. Saying all that, there is a huge shortage of carers especially for the older ones. Go into it having done your research

Hi, I manage and assess foster carers. Working doesn't exclude you from fostering at all and fostering teens lends itself better to this as they tend to be more independent but as others have said you do need to be available for meetings etc and these can be disruptive to daily life if there are issues in school etc. Having young birth children also wouldn't exclude you but all families are assessed on their own merits and children are very carefully matched to each family set up. Hope that is helpful x

My local authority specifies that birth children should be the eldest children in the family by at least 2 years in order to prevent jealousy issues and also to prevent older foster children from abusing younger children in the house. A lot of kids coming into care will be severely traumatised and this can come out in them abusing younger children physically or sexually - particularly if the older kids are boys.

I did things the ‘wrong’ way round and we fostered two little boys thinking we couldn’t have kids but then our daughter turned up who is now 4. She considers the boys her brothers and they’ve been with me for nearly 8 years since they were 5 and 6 and yet I don’t quite trust them around her if I’m not in the room too. Not so much that they would do anything sexual but the younger of the two is very jealous and may lash out at her. There have been minor incidents of him throwing things at her, pushing her etc.

If and when the boys move on I would personally only want to take younger children while she is still growing up.

Our youngest was 13 wen we started fostering.
Our Fs was 4 when he came.
There is no way I would have fostered until mine were at least teenagers and as above our agency recommends a 2 year gap a least.
When a foster child arrives in your family they become your priority. Your child’s needs come second.
I would say enjoy your children, if you work that’s putting pressure on the time you spend with them anyway, bringing a traumatised child who may well have additional needs will mean they have less of your birth children.
If your children are young you have plenty of time later on to foster.
I would leave it a few years.

Fair points about prioritising your own children. But we started fostering when ours were 3 and 6, initially babies/toddlers and then older children as ours grew. That worked for us, it does mean attention is shared out a bit more, I suppose like when you have another child of your own. And I would say that, while our own kids found it challenging at times, they are very proud of the work we did and it helped them grow up with a perspective beyond our own middle class bubble. It made them less spoiled and less insular I think.