Foster parent struck off after Muslim girl converts to Christianity.

[MrsSeanBeanIsEmployable]

See here

I am struggling to understand the reasoning behind this decision.

It would appear to be unfair, unequal and disrespectful of the right of a 16 year old to make her own decision, not to mention discriminatory against the foster mother.

I was not aware that foster carers had to live a secular life. What else could she have done?!

The thing which I think annoys me most is 'Council officials advised the teenager to reconsider her decision' .... who the *?%$ do they think they are to advise anyone on matters of faith?

We are foster parents. We are supposed to support their faith and preserve their heritage.

There must be more than that article to it as that is exactly what the foster parent did. They offered halal meat and reminded her if she wanted to practise her faith to wear a headscarf. They offered to take her to mosque and offered to observe religious holidays.

The girl of her own volition, entirely self-directed wanted to be involved in church activities and asked to go.

The problem appears to be that the foster parent told her social worker but didn't tell the childs social worker - this is perfectly normal once a child becomes a teenager as they often meet their own social worker outside the home.

I'm only going on what I read into the article and there must be more to it than that.

It is very different from the nurse who offered to pray for her patients as she is the one that offered, so therefore not client-directed. If a client had asked that would be entirely different. On reading about the foster parents it seems to be entirely instigated by the child.

Social work was historically, and still is ime, a job that Christians who want to 'do good' go into. There are a quite a lot of practising Christians in ss in reality.

So it makes little sense to me to say things like 'bloody ss are all against Christians!'

By StewieGriffinsMom on Mon 09-Feb-09 23:04:56
As a foster parent, my sister is not allowed to do the following to children without permission: haircuts, dentist, assessed for SEN, take child to certain movies.

SGM - this sounds very restrictive. Is the haircut thing just on religios grounds, or are they not allowed to take them for a general trim?

I am not surpirised there is such a dearth of foster parents. They must have to tread on eggshells. I (very naively it seems), thought a Foster Mother was acting as a parent (clue in the name?) and was the legal guardian. Clearly I am ill informed. From the info here, it sounds like Councils seem to be usuing FMs as a sort of extended institution. I think FMs should be allowed to use their initiative and supported, not burdened with onerous rules like not being allowed to take a child for a hair cut.

I cut my foster daughters hair last year but only after the mother was consulted and agreed. Her hair was waist length and very thick and the four lots of nits she had were a real trial.

Thankfully she said yes. I cut it to shoulder length and then I've just kept that up.

I do take her to the dentist and doctors and keep a log. I am legally responsible so if she is in an accident then I am the one who decides on treatment.

There are two types of care order though - I have the section 20 one which is a full care order.

I decide what films she watches

Glad you have some discrestion Laurie, I had visions of a child with toothache and a social worker with a mobile switched off.

It does seem strange that SS have deemed the parent unfit actually to care for the child, yet they still have the casting vote on a haircut.

discretion I meant..

MrsSB: as someone else said, fostering isn't always due to the parents being bad parents. If someone is very ill and has to be in hospital for a long time, therefore physically incapabable of caring for a child, it would seem very harsh that they therefore lost all right to be consulted over the child's upbringing. (we do not, for instance, know if the girl in the case referred to was in care because of bad/neglectful parenting, or if it was a case of family difficulties/health reasons and she was supposed to be going back to her family in a short space of time).

' often wonder - exactly who are this 'pc brigade' that everyone mentions? I'm being serious, what does it mean? '

read an artcle on that other day initially a perjurative term dreamed up by the first Bush administration to discredit anyone with an interest in social welfare policies.

Thought that was quite interesting myself.

Otherwise what SGB and Wannabe said.

Oh and don't think Christians themselves are the issue here. I am a practising Chriostian and may go into SW at some stage.... I would never attempt to recruit and haveno problems with other faiths- quite the reverse indeed, I ahve a Universalist belief (all faiths equally valid and alternative routes to the same ideal).

Am I right that the child has now been returned to her parents?

If so I suspect that they have made an official complaint to the Council re their daughter's decision.

The Council has made a political scapegoat of the foster mother imo.

Wasn't it the foster manager at the council not the foster carer who became "incandescent with rage" at the girl being baptised?

Of course it could be that the girl's decision to convert was her way of getting back at her parents for something (this is, after all, the kind of thing teenagers do) and the SS thought the FM encouraged it to further her own agenda. We really don't know the full circumstances but, like I said, quotes from the Christian Institute suggest that it's the new breed of buckethead tiresome Christians stirring the pot again - the people who insist that Christians are persecuted when what they mean is, Christians don't get more rights than other people any more.

Given that fostering services are not legally required to provide a placement beyond the age of 16 (I've just looked it up) it seems to me that a 16 year old would/should, by that criteria, be considered old enough to make up her own mind.

As foster carers of also over 80 children we are not allowed:

to cut a childs hair without parental consent
to agree to medical treatment (unless in a life threatening situation)
to allow peircings, tattoos etc.

We agree to preserve and encourage the childs religion but I can't imagine being able to influence any 16 year old let alone one in FC.

This seems extremely heavy handed to me and I thought I'd seen some ridiculous decisions made by ss, this one is the worst

Flower - would you get agreement from the parents or from the SW if say your foster child needed to go to the docs with a chest infection? I never realised that foster carers had so little autonomy.

In response to the OP - obviously there may be a lot more to the story than meets the eye, but on the face of it, SS sound to have been rather heavy handed given the child was 16.

It could all backfire horribly in the courts I fear. The Council could find themselves guilty of the very thing they probably believe they're acting against.

TC as a general rule the childs parents are asked to sign a permission for treatment form when their child is coming into care.
Whilst most parents accept that it is obviously in the childs interest to receive medical treatment quickly some do refuse.

I must admit this has proved quite traumatic at times when as I believe someone mentioned, we cannot get in touch with ss immediately.

I once had to take a baby to hospital as he'd trapped his finger in a door and the cut was very bad. I was told he needed surgery to clean the wound and this would involve a general anaesthetic (sp)

It took two hours to reach emergency duty at our social services as it was a weekend. If it had been a life threatening injury I would have been allowed to sign consent on behalf of ss.

Flower - the situation you have described is ridiculous. Whose interests are being protected exactly?! Me confused.

I feel very sorry for foster carers, and I take my hat off to anyone able/ willing to do this job given the extraordinary demands and seemingly unnecessary stress placed on them. I mean, not being able to agree to non-life threatening surgery (but still thoroughly unpleasant and open to infection) - the quicker these things are sorted the better for all I would have thought - imagine the poor child having the whole thing strung out waiting for SW's say so. This is very distressing to think about. What happened to 'in loco parentis'? Would the same aplly if a child were injured at school and the parent could not be contacted?