What happens when a disabled foster child ages out of foster care?

[K37529]

Our foster son is currently 12. He has ASD and severe mobility issues. He is currently under LAC and we have a kinship social worker, but happens when he turns 18? His mobility issues have become more severe as he has grown and I’m coming to the realisation that he is probably going to need lifelong care.

We have had to get approved as Shared Lives carers to keep our disabled foster child post 18. It was a total logistical nightmare but it was that or he would've had to go into residential care..
We weren't able to adopt him for legal reasons but if you can do that it makes it an awful lot easier when they get to 18.

I think he would go into a residential home. You may be able to have him on short breaks if you remain registered. We had a young person with a disability for short breaks ( they were happily resident with their family but this gave them a break and the yp a place to come for sleepovers.). After they turned 18 we deregistered but the young person still comes informally. I doubt that will be an option if they are in care as the state is ' the parent'. Would be good if you can keep in touch if you feel able to.

What would you like to happen? Some people decide to adopt after fostering for a time. I know one family where the LA agreed to keep the fostering allowance for both children after adoption until age 18 because of their complex needs.

I think you need to decide what you want to happen and go from there.

Supported Living with a care package or a residential home depending on level of need

Hello :) My brother was in foster care for periods of his life. He had cerebral palsy, he was non verbal and was a full time wheelchair user. He would have had to go into full time residential care as his foster parents weren’t willing to be shared lives carers. In the end he ended up with his grandparents, and once they died he moved in with me. From what I saw of the homes they weren’t the nicest of places, hence why I was his carer as soon as I was able to be.

I’m going to look up shared lives carers as I’ve never heard of it, are you based in the UK? SS said adoption isnt an option for us I think due to his complex needs.

Social services said adoption isn't an option for us. I was just wondering what support is available after he turns 18 as I don’t think we will have the lac/kinship social workers anymore. Is he then moved over to a different department within social services?

Surely they wouldn’t put him in residential care if we wanted to keep him here?

Thanks for your reply. I think I might have worded my post wrong as a lot of responses are mentioning residential care. I really just meant what support was available once he turns 18 as I know we won’t have kinship/lac anymore, I will read up on shared lives carers thanks

could I just ask did you have to go through the shared lives carer process or where you allowed to just take your brother home? I probably should have said our foster child is my nephew so maybe because he’s family that makes a difference?

I'm afraid I don't know anything about fostering, but for a disabled child with complex needs who is going need SS support as an adult the formal process of transition should start at 16, so services don't fall off a cliff edge.

My advice from our experience as parents however is that the sooner you start talking to SS about what you want and what will best meet your foster son's needs the better. Get it documented in review meetings so that when he does become an adult there should, in theory, be a clear plan.

With our son we made a point of telling anyone who would listen that we were thinking of supported living from when he was about 10. He made the move at 19.

I appauld you, you are special like everyone else that is a foster carer.

Shared lives schemes - Social care and support guide - NHS https://share.google/NpDkVMjoCTDXStlVg

Ask your local ss disabilities team
Most have transitions team covering 16 to 25 (to match ehcp age) but at 18 the adult care act kicks in and you need to be approved to care for adult

It is lovely that you want to continue but in longer term you will need to look at other options as well

Thanks for your reply. He has social services involved but they are because he’s fostered. My worry was that once he turns 18 they would just disappear and we’d have no support. Will definitely speak to our social worker about some kind of care plan from him once he turns 18.

Thank you. I’m glad I asked because I genuinely had no idea we would have to be approved to care for him as an adult. I assumed that once he turned 18 social services would just disappear and we would have no support.

The transition discussion begins around age 14 at the annual ehcp review.
You can start to find out already eg if they run a shared lives scheme etc

Ss will always be involved as he will be a vulnerable adult and ss are gatekeepers for any day services etc
You have few years to go but good to be informed
Have a read of the care act

Care Act factsheets - GOV.UK https://share.google/HQLeWOplIrwqdvKl8

yes we are in UK. Shared lives is basically like foster care for adults who still need support
The planning should begin at age 14 and kick in properly at 16 but our child's local authority apointed a transition social worker 6 weeks before his 18th birthday. We had been fighting for 2 years to get plans in place because they leave foster care on their birthday and no one has parental responsibility for them either so.the whole thing is a legal.minefield. And no one has responsibility for managing money or medical decisions either.
Lots of local.authorities don't seem to even understand the process themselves and it was a v stressful time for us trying to secure our young man's future. You have a few years before you need to tackle it but I would start to.look at this in plenty of time .

He would be under adult social services and they would have a duty to assess and meet his eligible needs under the Care Act.
They should start talking about transition to adult services from around 14/15.
Young people with disabilities can be funded in education placements until 25 I believe.

In order for you to continue to receive an allowance for caring for him you might have to become Shared lives carers as someone mentioned (similar to fostering but of adults with disabilities).

Otherwise they might look at supporting him to move towards living independently if that's possible for him.

The child will get support up until 21 and access to advice and guidance at their request up until 25, from the leaving care team.

as he has complex needs, it’s likely he will need support from adult services. In my LA, there is a ‘transitions team’ for young adults to help with this.

Supported lodgings is available via the leaving care team, which will offer some financial support post 18.
I believe shared lives (as mentioned above) is for people with additional needs, so that may be a better option, as his support will likely exceed 21/25.

In my LA, they encourage teenagers to be referred to transitions from 14, although assessments are likely to be picked up and completed until between 16-18.
I would speak to the child’s social worker / your social worker for some guidance.

ps adoption shouldn't be ruled out on grounds of complex needs either. We adopted our youngest foster child with no issues and he is at the v extremes of complexity. We haven't been able to adoption our oldest for other legal reasons I can't go into.sadly. It is much easier with our youngest tbh. I like the security of adoption though even with that you.dont have PR ( parental responsibility) after their 18th birthday so need to get power of attorney or deputy ship to make decisions for them if they cannot do it for themselves.
And one final.thing ! You can apply directly to the courts for an adoption order if you choose to do so. you dont need social services permission.
Perhaps it would be worth speaking to a lawyer who specialises in adoption and fostering. The fostering network have a free legal helpline if you are a member?
As you can tell I have been in the trenches for 20 yrs with this stuff so if I can help further feel free to get in touch.

I didn’t have to go through shared lives, he was allowed with me without any additional checks. I don’t know if that will be different for you because you had him with you before he was 18, and my DB was older than me when he came to me. Social services won’t just disappear when he’s 18, but in my experience they are much more keen to have them with relatives rather than in the care of the LA. We didn’t have any involvement with SS once he’d been living with us for 6 months - in fact they were only involved because he’d been found in the house with his grandma who had passed away and the police called them as they couldn’t get a hold of me x

OP fantastic planning ahead for this young man.

I am Scotland but at that age we would be looking towards a guardianship IF he was lacking capacity to grant a power of attorney.

There is also a special guardianship in England I believe as an under 18 alternative to adoption.

which may then lay a pathway to adult services

Did you ask SS what the options were if you can't adopt. How can one social worker decide you can't adopt? I thought that was a decision for a judge ... before child reaches 18.

We were told we couldn’t adopt or even get residency because his mobility issues are very complex. The doctors have not been able to formally diagnose his mobility issues and there has been a lot of big decisions made around this. He is currently in hospital having had surgery earlier this week to try and improve his mobility but doctors have said that this has not gone as they hoped so there is now going to be more decisions to be made and they still have to operate on the other leg. It’s been an absolute nightmare, and social services have said we need their support with all of this. I think if we tried to go for adoption they would fight us on it and they are the only ones with PR.