'At risk register' or children's home - which do you think works best?

[PaulaYatesBiggestFan]

For want of a better phrase

Samantha Morton ( victim of abuse at home and in a 'home') says being 'in care' despite the abuse - means that she is here today

I err that way....

Can children's homes work ? how can we make them work?

I think its a good thing that this thread has come up - we are survivors and we can change the present we arent defined by our past however hard the scabs take to heal and maybe our kids wont bear any of our bruises and thats it - the badness has passed through.

I think from reading paula yates and claires thoughts, the moment you can say to yourself yes that happened,yes that was shit- this is now- todays a clean page - thats how we move forward.

I find i question my parenting a lot more than my friends do - im shit scared of really fucking it up- do you 2 feel the same?

my spelling is shocking!!

NC, Yep I am shit scared of say in 10yrs time my dc's saying what a shit childhood they've had. I'm on my own, their Dad doesn't want to know and is a useless twat. I'm doing my absolute best but I do break down and have shite days, I just hope they remember the good ones better than the bad...

My DS spent the first year of his life in a (very good) childrens home. Comparing the damage caused to some babies the same age as him through shockingly shit parening I have come to conclusion that good institutional care is better than abusive family care any day. Despite what any social worker would say.

Kewcumber, I agree with you there. Good institutional care is better than a shit family home. Can I also say what a gorgeous son you have (I noseyed at your profile )

I have no personal experience so may well be talking out of my behind, but it does trouble me that so many councils are so short of foster carers that they apparently have to put kids with any that they can get and don't worry too much if the foster parents are basically in it for the money.

Or send children a very long way away from home - London councils frequently dump their kids in children's homes in Margate because property prices are lower there (so more bigger houses available). Cue a very high rate of running away.

WRT fostering, I'm sure most foster parents are caring and so on but in any field you will get people who are not wonderful or acting from the best motives. And I hear shortages at the moment mean SS don't weed the less good ones out.

Have read here of fosterers who treat the fostered child very differently from their own, will buy nice food for the family and cheap shit for the fostered child.

From my work, I know some of the facts about the shortage of foster carers and the horribly frequent moves that children in care are subject to. But I don't know the personal stuff as have never been that deeply involved - just come across some very broad brush info.

edam - its one of the reasons I get so cross about the prejudice against transracial adoption - I would happily take another mixed race child but won;t get on in teh UK - however coucnils won;t hesitate to put such children on barely adequate foster care (where the foster carer is often white ) and wehre they end up for a long time until they are virtually unadoptible. Waiting for the perfect racial match of a parent.

Agree, Kewcumber, it seems horribly prejudiced to think that skin colour is THE most important thing about a person, so vital that it's better to leave children languishing in foster care rather than giving them the opportunity of a permanent family.

Of course new families should be sensitive to culture and all that stuff, but to leave children twisting in the wind because they happen to have the 'wrong' skin colour to match with potential adopters seems wrong-headed to me. And racist. Even if the motivation isn't consciously racist, that's the result.

I agree its very sad that skin colour is determining who can adopt - years ago my dh lived as a small boy on a long street near a park ,when he speaks of his childhood he remembers his friend colin ,now remembering this he showed me some fotos and Colin is black on other pictures Colins mum and dad are there - they are white.

Dh at 30 odd years old had never 'seen' this and mentioned it to his mum along the lines of 'mum you remember Colin? why was his mum and dad white?'- because he was adopted!!!! yet it took my reasonably intelligent dh years and years to see this colin was colin his mate.

Kids need love they need care they need understanding they need guiding when it comes to that colour and religion really are way down the list of priorities.

A lot of other European countries have a far more extensive network of children's homes, and require degree-level qualifications of most of their employees.
The SOS Children's Villages in particularly strike me as a good set-up - you get small groups of family units, with house parents and children of mixed ages in each unit - these are popular all over Europe and further afield - but not in the UK.

I do think the current system here is shockingly inadequate and completely fails most of the children taken into care, and of course particularly those who should be taken into care but aren't.

description of the SOS Children's Village near my old home town (and as I said, you get these all over the place):

SOS Children's Village Schleswig-Holstein
The SOS Children's Village Schleswig-Holstein comprises eleven family houses and was opened in 1970. It is located in the city of Lütjenburg, close to the Baltic Sea. Today the SOS Children's Village Schleswig-Holstein and the ancillary educational community accommodate about 70 children.

The SOS Children's Village Schleswig-Holstein offers a variety of ancillary facilities and services.
About 30 children attend the day care centre. An educational community offers room to eight to ten children and youth in need of temporary external accommodation due to grave conflicts within their natural families.
The community was designed for medium term care and its goal is the re-integration of the children into their natural families.
Moreover, girls and boys from sixteen to twenty-two years have the possibility to join one of the two semi-independent housing programs, where they can live nearly independent, but under the guidance of their educators.
The youth receive support and advice in school and vocational affairs and are prepared to cope with the challenges of every day life. A training centre for home economics with twelve training posts and a hostel for the apprentices are also available.
The SOS Children's Village Schleswig-Holstein also maintains an educational service for SOS children and for the children from the vicinity.

Was about to say the same as geekgirl

I read something recently about Germany where children are more likely to end up in small homes and keep in some contact with their mother or parents. They felt this was better as it means the child doesn't end up with divided loyalties. It certainly seemed to have a lot going for it.

Of course it's more expensive than foster care.

kew - my friend has recently adopted mixed race little boy ( half greek) and sri lankan little girl

Special needs meant that maybe the agencies had a more laissez faire attitude which could be seen as a bit

NICKSCHICK yes you are so right in all respects

the childhood bit is easy enough for me to parent - I find the teen bit more taxing - but maybe because I am constantly thinking - 'I want this to be the right way to do it' Issues arise in teen years and it takes devotion and a LOT of patience to deal with them

BUT and it is a big but - i do think a lot of parents are unworthy lazy shits and tbh the fact that we are 'trying' tp be good is half the battle

there are a lot of selfish adults around as another poster said

One of my 'kids' came to visit me tonight -only a quick chat im trying to convince her to confide in her tutors at school so she can get special consideration in her exam (she has a lot of stuff going on)- she wont ,she said to me tonight if i lived here id never want to go out again,dh tactfully took the dog for a walk and my usually rowdy teenage sons stayed upstairs.

Paula - yes it does happen and some social workers are more enlightened than others. Personally I htink if a social hasn't placed a child within 6 months of them being placed for adoption that the social worker should be changed for a fresh perspectove or that there should be an independent review process to ensure that parents of not the perfect racial match are getting passed over whilst the children are in foster care.

Personally if anything happened to me then I'd far rather DS went to a (say) black family who cared for him than that he went into foster care.

Kew you speak so much sense

I have always thought the rules waaay to rigid