Government Announced to Increase Fostering Numbers

[Miababe]

Is it just me or is this really odd? £88 million reform package announced to 10,000 new foster care placements, with rule changes, new fostering national rulebook with efforts to open up to the young (who generally don't have a spare bedroom), single fosterers (there are many and for the ones who cannot afford to they won't receive any help towards this) and more diverse households (I thought they already encouraged these people to help) oh, and no plans to help retention of existing foster carers. What is this just more advertising. Here in the East Midlands we have posters encouraging foster carers very regularly on billboards.

They say there will be Fostering Hubs and more joined up planning between LA, IFA's and charities and more support with caring for traumatised children with training. What do you think?

We need 10,000 more foster placements? Are these poor kids just languishing at home now then?

Dh and I looked into fostering - he really wanted us to do something to “give back”. But we found we were being put off at every turn - mostly by people who already foster! it sounds like a nightmare job, I don’t know how any normal family could make space for another child (edited to add: given how difficult they seem to make it to bring a foster child into your home)

VacayDreamer - I think the government are concerned about the number of children in children's homes many of which are privately managed and hugely expensive. They say many of the children do not need to be in such provision and could be in a family setting if there were enough foster carers.

Vacaydreamer - that is a shame when you wanted to help. Did you start the process at all or where you just discouraged by the other foster carers you have met?

Yes absolutely there are children known to the courts with agreement that they should be removed, but “languishing at home” because placements can’t be found for them.

There are also thousands of children living in residential homes who would be better off living in foster families, but there are not placements for them.

See also many groups of brothers and sisters having to grow up separated because there aren’t foster families who can care for them together. And children growing up hours from home because no local foster family can be found for them.

It’s a vicious cycle - whilst services are underfunded and not enough placements exist, children are at home suffering harm for longer. Therefore when they do come into care they often have a higher level
of complex needs due to their lived experiences, and carers find it more difficult to care for them. And so fostering is seen as (understandably!) hard and undesirable and the issue with a lack of placements persists.

I'm a foster carer and many DC in care have trauma from their previous lives. Any spare money should be spent making counselling appointments available for these DC. Waiting 3 years on a list is just not acceptable and makes it much harder for FC's to care for these damaged DC.

From reading various threads about this, the money they pay foster carers is pitiful.

Rather than increasing the pay for foster carers, they are talking about making it easier for people to work full time AND be accepted as foster carers, which feels rather like it's missing the point.

If I worked full time (my job is known for long hours and burn out), there is no way I would have the emotional capacity to welcome a traumatised young person into my home.

If I wasn't working but was properly remunerated for caring 24/7, I would consider it.

Everything with this (and previous) governments is crap soundbites but not actually making anything better.

The change to allow working is a key one because that was a huge barrier. I do think it’s needs to pay better though

I heard this on the news, was really surprised that renters, full time workers and single people were previously excluded from fostering. That must really have reduced the pool a lot. I wondered how fosterers afforded to do it as the allowance isn't a wage as such. I think it's good to be more inclusive.

They weren't excluded and there are many foster carers in each of those categories. However there is a bit of a culture within both fostering agencies and social services that foster carers shouldn't work ft because of appointments and so on, shouldn't be single because they might not be able to cope alone and so on. What I hope will change is more flexible thinking about individual circumstances and how fostering could work for potential carers in these groups instead of more rule-driven thinking that tends to happen now. I do hear social workers say things like "this child needs a 2-parent family because they are high needs, a single carer couldn't cope" without taking into account that single carers can sometimes be more flexible, might have a great support network etc.

This sort of cultural change doesn't make good headlines though so you get complete inaccuracies instead.

I thought that there was a need for the foster care to only work part time if at all because of the many meetings and appointments involved in caring for these children in care.

They aren't sorting out CAHMs so no, it won't help anything. In my opinion it's just an advert that is more likely to attract pedophiles and similar because they are shouting they are dropping the requirements.

I considered fostering and adoption when DD was small. I soon realised as a single mother I wasn't going to be approved. If DD had had some CAHMs in primary when she was bullied by her peers I might have had more faith in the system but as someone who knows a lot of people in this area they all told me not to as it is hard enough with 2 parents not working trying to get help and all of the paperwork, emotional issues and lack of support.

Woman's Hour do a lot of talks on fostering and the systemic issues. If anyone is considering it I would listen back over the last couple of years (BBC Sounds, do a search if the useless site will allow it!) and use the discussions raised to ask the pertinent questions before you sign up.