Social worker issues

[sweetrudy101]

Hello, I have a question and hope someone can help, please. We are caring for two gorgeous boys, 2 & 4, through social services. We adore every minute, they are such a delight. The problem: We recently discovered a social worker has shared what we believe is our personal information with (dare I say) the not-so-good father of the children! The SW told the father that we are receiving payments for the boys, and we think the SW had no right to do this. We are in our early 70s, we didnt even know about these government-funded payments until 6 months ago, up to then, we had no issues caring for the boys without payment.

We firmly believe the sw can discuss things about his sons with the father, but to discuss our financial details, we think he had no right to do that. We think he has broken our data protection by doing so, not only this, there has been ongoing problems with the same man, who thinks we are too old to do this & seems to want to sort of make things hard for us, yet all of our reports which have been done are glowing, the childrens care their develomet all A+ yet this 1 man is awful, the rest of the team are wonderful.

Can anyone tell us has our data protection been broken? Am I within my rights to call his manager and perhaps ask if this could be noted at least? I dont want to, but we do not trust this 1 man whatsoever. I have a not-so-good feeling about this particular man, and my trust in him is very low indeed. Thank you for reading this message. Any advice would be much appreciated. Trudie. x

I see where you are coming from but I would argue that foster parents receiving payments is general knowledge and not specific to you therefore I can't see how it would be a data breach.

I thought it was common knowledge that people fostering got an allowance to do so. If the arrangement was through social services why were you not getting it from the start?

The SW has not broken any data protection laws or policies. You’re fostering and receiving an allowance which all foster carers do. By law, if you’re caring they LA has to provide financial assistance to the children through the foster carers.

Telling the father is not an issue. It’s telling the father that the children are being cared for and those caring for them has financial assistance to do so.

I assume you're relatives of the boys given that you were previously caring for them for free? At the point that you were approved and regulated as carers that would have been communicated to the parents and that would include the information that you receive a fostering allowance. That's publicly available information which the father could have found out by google. If the father had asked the social worker if you receive money for caring for them the social worker couldn't have lied. This really isn't 'personal information' for you to be upset about them sharing, sorry.

Is it kinship payments you are receiving? I don't think telling the father is an issue. It tells him that you have been assessed as suitable to care for the children and they are ensuring you are financially able to provide for their needs. It's possible that he argued that two pensioners might be unable to do this and they were setting him straight.

It is common knowledge that kinship/fostering payments are a thing , so confirming that would not be a breach. The father probably assumed you were getting paid anyway.

It's not a data breach. They're not discussing your private information. A rudimentary Google would let anyone know that an allowance is payable by the LA and will give you the figures for this by age.

You say dad has raised concerns about your ages. Is it possible that given he's not got anywhere raising concerns about that he's now said something about the cost of raising children and the SW has in response advised that there is an allowance to support this?

Yes exactly what everyone else has said as kinship carers it is common knowledge you are entitled to an allowance . No data breach has been committed.

Actually no, we were not told of ay payments, that as held back the SW kept that from us and we didnt know untill someone else mentioned we should be. The a few weeks ago the sw made a point of saying did you know that these people are being paid for the children and you should ask how much too, he wasnt aware eiter like us. So its the manner and way, as I say there has been numerous issues far worse with this person.

You basically got stiffed over when the children first were put with you. It happens all the time where children are placed with relatives but the LA will try to say it was a family decision the children went to live with you to avoid paying! However if it was proven the kids would have gone into care without you stepping in then you should have been told of your rights to be assessed as kinship carers and paid as such. I know a Grandmother this happened to...she challenged in retrospect and had a payment of 10s of thousands made to her.
If I were you I'd wait a year then apply for Special Guardianship, as long as things settled to get LA out of your lives BUT request financial support until children reach 18.