Any grandparents who foster their grandchildren?

[MrsWeasley]

Hi all, long time member here but a newbie on the gransnet threads. A short while ago I was asked to take in my grandchildren under a child protection issue we've been asked if we would consider longer term fostering arrangement but I work initially I was promised help with expenses and childcare but now that isn't forthcoming, they appear to be changing or making up the rules as they go along.SS have asked me to reduce my working week which I'm reluctant to do as it could turn out to be a temporary arrangement. Anyone else experience anything similar?

My ex mil has my grandchildren living with her under a temporary foster arrangement.
They've been with her since May last year.
She receives no extra money because she is related to the children.

Thanks for the reply. We've been told that once they have done a connected persons report we will get an allowance in line with other foster carers but it hasn't happened yet. I'll keep you informed.

Sort of in a similar situation. I have a Child Arrangement Order with residency for my 2 year old grandson. His mother also lives with me but is not supposed to have unsupervised contact with him (though ss keep moving the goal posts with this which is very frustrating). I work full time as a teacher and so grandson goes to a childminder and has done since he was 4 months old. He has thrived but my bank balance hasn't - at one stage it was costing over £1000 per month and ss will not even assess me for financial support. I ended up remortgaging and will have to take out another loan to cover this coming years fees. I have kicked up a massive fuss in each and every meeting and the best they could come up with was 10 hours funded nursery place (not funded by them but by the same pot of money that provides the 2 year old funding). From September he will get the 15 hours 2 year old funding and hopefully next September the 30 hours funding. I am single and if I didn't have a fair amount of equity in my house, I could not have managed and dgs would now be in foster care. My advice to you would be to get legal advice. If you are assessed to be their foster career, you are entitled to a foster carers allowance (unlike me who wasn't savvy enough to force SS to take him into care as he would then have come back to me anyway with a FC allowance).

You'll find a lot more people with experience of looking after grandchildren on the actual Gransnet. Some will have dealt with similar situations to you.