Ive name changed here. My reality is fostering around twenty unaccompanied minor 'children' from many different countries for over ten years up until six months ago. The reality is that many of these children are thought to have family in this country. The reality is that they seldom actually get to live with them, if they do it will take many many months to complete the checks required on their families ( maybe rightly so, the Local Authorities need to know for certain that these people are 'suitable', have the right accommodation etc) The reality is that often these 'families', once found, are not actually blood related or do not have the capacity in their home to look after the young person. All this takes a long, long time. In the meantime the 'child' is placed in LA foster care. The foster carers will be paid up to £400 including a fee and maintenance. I've no idea how one would calculate the costs of the SW, health and Education during this period.
Many LA carers are refusing to provide homes for unaccompanied young people now. There are many reasons for this and I can only speak from my own experiences as well as many carers I know from my own LA. ( oh and this then means that the children will be referred to independent fostering associations at a cost of between £750-950 per week)
I'll be perfectly honest and say here that, around 10 years ago when children starting coming from Afghanistan and Eritrea ( although they have always arrived unaccompanied, just not in the numbers that we see now) many carers enjoyed the 'challenge' of having an UM within their homes, me included.
As the years have gone on, the makeup of the children has drastically changed. The reality is that these young people are very very difficult to have within a home. If they present as, e.g., 15, it is very likely they will actually be around 20. If they are actually 15, they are very very different to our own 15 year old children, their life experiences can not be compared, obviously. A 15 year old male from, e.g., Syria, is actually like a fully grown man here.
I have 20 years experience working in various ways with teens, often males. I have experience of drugs, police, courts, living with severe mental health disorders, self harming and suicide attempts ( from local children). but NOTHING would persuade me to ever offer a home again to an unaccompanied child.
My reality is that these 'children' do not actually want to be in a foster home. They certainly do not wish to abide by ordinary family 'rules' and they certainly do not want to integrate into British society. Their one goal is to be within groups of other young people from their own country and culture ( very understandable) However, here they are, at the port, so what do we do? They come into foster care! They stay in foster care until the placement breaks down, they are moved to another foster placement until eventually they are given what they have demanded for that past year, a room in a shared house with other young people ( they may only still be maybe 16!)
So then we have five young, e.g., Eritrean, young people living together in a house rented on behalf of a LA on, for example, a housing estate. These young people are thought to be around16 years old! They speak very little English and do not integrate within the local community, they do not want to. It goes on......
This is the reality. I could actually write a book based on my own experiences of unaccompanied young people living within my home but it wouldn't be believed! However, I do know that there will be other foster carers reading this who will know exactly what I am talking about!
It's actually quite sad that I've felt the need to change my name here and I'll sit back and wait for the back lash. But nothing I've written here is untrue, it is the reality