help!

[VickyE83]

Hey everyone,

I would love to foster a kid I taught in a school locally but I'm not sure how to go about it? He is in care/foster home at the moment and we have a strong bond.

Ideally I would like to mentor for a few months so he can bond with my young son and then go into fostering. Am I mad? I don't know who to ask about this?

any help would be grateful.

Google your local fostering agencies and ask them questions. What do you mean mentor before fostering?

There’s something called “special visitor”
which might be what you mean, call social services for more information

Like help him with social skills, etc before I move onto the next step.

Thank you <3

@VickyE83

Have you any reason to believe that his current placement is unstable or that he is unhappy there ?
SWs will probably not be inclined to move a child from a settled home. It would also be unusual for an LA to take you through the assessment and approval process so you could foster a specific child. There would have to be exceptional reasons.
I'd also think again very carefully about the idea of him bonding with your son and the impact of bringing a traumatised child into your family. When you foster your own children are very much pushed into second place - you will expected to prioritise the foster child's family time, SWs appts etc. You will have delegated authority to take some decisions for the child but not all and this can get in the way of your own child's needs

Hi Ted,

Surely if you taught this child you’ll have an idea how the system works?

Hi 👋 as a teaching assistant you only get old so much. Thanks for your comment.

Do you know who his social worker is? Talk til Social Service.

But what do you want? A long term placement?

You will need some training and you really need to think what you can offer this child taking care of your own family too. It's not an easy thing. Fostering is hard work.

Did you phone social services to ask OP?
what happens if you ‘mentor’ the kid and then decide it’s not for you?

You could definitely ask to be assessed as a special guardian, but you wouldn't be able to foster him. Think carefully about why you want to do this though and how it would impact him if it didn't work out. Presumably if he's in long term foster care he has a stable, happy foster family so why do you think he would be better off with you?

@VickyE83

Im going to very kindly suggest that at this point you don't know enough about fostering in itself to make an informed decision about whether fostering is what you want to do.
You.absolutely don't have enough knowledge about this child to decide if he would be right for your family. And SW won't give you that information unless you are an approved foster carer, and even then they can be economical with the facts

Your first steps would be to contact your local authority’s fostering department.
It totally depends on the future plans for this child and whether you would meet the thresholds to become a foster carer.