Why don't young people foster?

[Vineling]

We've been having a discussion in the office today, (I recruit foster carers as my day job) about why it's people who are aged 50 plus who in the main foster. Those who teenagers have flown the nest and gone off to Uni. So my question is why don't younger people consider fostering? instead of perhaps going back to work after a baby or as a career choice? and what can we do to encourage them to consider it? We need people of all ages over 21 with a spare bedroom but it's the younger ones we struggle to reach and encourage to foster.

Exactly this.
You make it sound like fostering a cat. You don't need to do anything, just chuck some food at it a couple of times a day, give it a fuss and make sure there's a comfy sofa somewhere for it to sleep on. The reality is extremely different, as you should know. Fostering is hard and not always rewarding for those parents who've already had the experience of bringing children up to adulthood, never mind those barely out of Uni and into work, struggling with debts, mortgages, sky high bills or new babies.

Doesn't someone in the family need to not be working if you want to foster? I doubt the payment covers the lost income, even before you consider that most young people aren't in secure enough housing.

It's definitely alot to do with the housing situation. I would have fostered when I was younger, if I had secure housing. This was hard to find twenty five years ago and it's like hen's teeth now. You can't have children who have had unsettled backgrounds/traumatised experiences going into crappy private lets where the landlord could chuck you out and decide to sell with relatively short notice. (well no children should be in such housing, but will leave my soapbox for another thread).

Do you think you might need a lot more training at your job, OP?
Also, what do the strange photos of models that you posted have to do with fostering?

Why I will never encourage my adult birth children to become foster carers…..

1 - financial instability, as in you can’t rely on fostering allowance as an income. As it can very quickly be taken from you when a child is removed when an allegation is made. Also very difficult to get a mortgage on an allowance.
2 - need life experience to help you deal with working with social workers, intrusion, not being treated as a professional, having to justify every thing you do. Working within a LA that permits institutional workplace bullying.
3 - having to give up your lifestyle as the LAC doesn’t fit into your life, you have to fit into their life attending appointments, contact, meetings.
4- need life experience to accommodate contact with birth family and sometimes it can be in your own home.
5- your home is no longer your home - it’s a placement. it’s sometimes no longer a safe place, it is now a place of work. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
6- putting yourself at risk of allegation which could potentially ruin further employment opportunities.
7- looking after the children is the easy part, often a joy, it’s just all the bureaucracy, paper work and the length of time for decisions to be made about a child’s future , any younger than 50 person will be an OAP by the time a decision is made.
8- last but not least….
Sometimes, not always, when it goes tits up, BEING PART OF A SYSTEM THAT DAMAGES CHILDREN MORE THAN THE BIRTH PARENTS EVER DID!
9- if none of the above happens, it will be amazing and very rewarding!

This is an astonishingly naive question. You say you recruit foster carers?
The reasons have been repeatedly detailed here and having / not having a spare bedroom isn't at the top of the list.

I'm assuming you're either not very old yourself or have led a sheltered life.

I wouldn't foster while my kids are still at home. I would worry about bringing kids into the home that may be traumatised and as a result not having the time to look after my kids properly. I would also worry about the emotional and potentially physical toll it would have on my kids.

Because young people don’t have a spare room and have to work full time to pay rent/mortgage 🙄

I also considered fostering pre child, but my worries were always that I wouldn’t be able to handle.

now that I have a baby, I wouldn’t consider it as I think it would be too risky/not knowing the child’s history, putting my own at risk, etc…

Because I didn't want to bring a child with possible challenges into my household with my own young kids. Heard too many horror stories about behaviours risky to resident kids.

I'd do it once they're older.

Aside from the obvious practical issues affecting young adults such as shared accommodation, trying to get themselves financially established, maybe looking for a partner to settle down with, a good carer is not just any Tom, Dick and Harry who has a spare room.

Children who in care have a complex package of experiences, often with side effects of trauma which can display in many ways.

It also requires a level of availability for lots of multi-agency appointments so isn't compatible with a lot of jobs that lack flexibility.

I agree.

same here
it seems completely obvious to me
younger people are struggling more than the previous few generations with their own housing and living costs. many struggle to pay for themselves let alone a young child. How many 30 year olds in a temporary job, living in a houseshare or in their parents spare bedroom would be accepted as a suitable foster carer even if they applied?
of those that could financially support a child most will either want their own children, or not want kids at all.

Even younger people who are having their own kids these days have them later and have fewer than previous generations.

Oh and the reason I wouldn't do it now (53) is that almost 20 years as a social worker fecking broke me physically and mentally and I missed out on alot of my own children's younger years. I got no bloody support from social work as an employee and was treated appallingly. I wish I had had the mental savvy to take the Council to a tribunal but I was for constructive dismissal as I was so unwell through what they put me through but I was so broken, I just wanted to forget it all. I also saw foster carer's who should not have been let near children. Not anything criminal- just hard faced, unfeeling b*stards who gave no shit about the kids in their care . I also saw foster carers like my cousin who are dedicated to the children they care for and get no support and are not treated right by Social Services. So much needs to be done for children in local authority care and can't see it happening soon sadly!

Most people want to kick start their career before having kids and fostering is only going to slow that down.

I wouldn’t call fostering a career, especially not one to fall back on.

I actually looked into fostering in my mid-late 20s as I already had a child and felt I could help other children but you need a spare bedroom before applying.

You cannot have a spare bedroom if you are in social housing and I couldn’t afford to pay crazy private rent prices for a third bedroom that I may not have needed for months/years.

I have looked at fostering in the past and it is something I would still like to do in the future. What has put me off when I was younger is that one of the adults, if they are a couple need to work p/t - and this was not affordable. It wouldn't be affordable as a single person either. I understand the reasons for it but it ruled it out. My friend fostered and him and his wife had no children themselves but at a training day - with others who had their own kids - some rules were outlined - safeguarding / protection of children and adults - things that were fine for your bio kids but not for your fostered kids. Again, they were understandable but would mean either changes for your own kids or treating foster kids differently.

In the future I would probably look to foster teenagers rather than young children but at the time I thought similar age children to my own would be more appropriate and I would want to treat them the same as far as possible.

This is what I decided too.

I'm not sure what your agenda is with the fake photos but you must know the reality of fostering is very much less pretty, despite the amazing work FCs do.
Due to house price increases, few people younger than 50s have spare rooms or are able to rely on the fostering income rather than regular work, and they may well have their own children at home. It also demands a degree of resilience, experience and support.

DH and I will probably foster in the future when our own dc are grown up.

We won’t do it now because our dc are our priority and it wouldn’t be fair to them to bring a (damaged, potentially very challenging) child into their lives. It also doesn’t pay enough to replace one of our jobs.

We are likely to in the future because we have lots of the skills needed and are passionate about dc having a good start in life (we’re both teachers so see it from another perspective every day).

When I was in my 20s and 30s I had a social life. Used to go out and have fun. Spent my weekends riding horses and renovating my first very tatty cottage.

Children hadn't even crossed my mind. Not my own, definitely not someone else's.

Now I'm raising ds on my own while working full time, paying off the mortgage.

When Ds goes to uni, and my mortgage is paid off, maybe I'll consider it.

What support would they get? Not lip service but actual, practical boots on the ground help?
I’ve been in some hairy situations with foster children and their friends/associates and found the support very lacking.
perhaps the better question is what are they being offered to encourage those who are able to? The financial incentive isn’t enough and trying to get hold of practical support is hard.
im not sure I’m going to carry on and I have decades of connections and experience to fall back on.

things that were fine for your bio kids but not for your fostered kids.

the above statement is so true!

an example…
myself, 2 birth children and 2 foster kids on a woodland walk.
All 4 kids are happily walking along, we come to a tree that has fallen, so almost horizontal. The 4 kids get on it to walk along it. 2 foster kids have to come off as we haven’t done a risk assessment!!!

I've seen first hand the piss poor treatment of foster carers and their wards. The abject neglect is truly horrifying - there is no respite. I always thought it was something it might do when DC have flown the nest but having seen the reality of the way both carers and children are treated in a broken system I couldn't sign up for 24/7 of that.

We need people of all ages over 21 with a spare bedroom but it's the younger ones we struggle to reach and encourage to foster.

You put your answer in the first post. Because they need a spare bedroom.

The only foster parents I know are in their late twenties / early thirties. One couple are fostering to adopt, the other couple fosters preteens and teens with no intention of having their own or adopting.