"Foster" advice needed urgently sought

summerday

Hi there,

So sorry to hear you had an unhelpful social worker come round. It is not acceptable for you to be expected to look after the girl (who I do feel really sorry for). If you say you will not look after her and there are no other friends and family who would have her for no living costs then they will have no choice but to put her in a foster family and pay them the proper fostering allowances!

I know you must feel in a really difficult position, did you ring the fostering network that someone posted details of? If I was yuo though I would say that she unfortunately cannot stay with you if they don't pay you any costs. Tell the girl that she can perhaps come to tea once a week and ring you as she will no doubt need lots of support. When I worked for social care I knew of lots of families who took in one of their childrens friends and got Family and Friends allowance that I think was two thirds of the standard fostering allowance.

If you were thinking about being assessed as a foster carer be aware that it is a lengthy procedure that takes months, you will have your life history looked into, quite an intrusive (not that it shouldn't be, just so that you know). You or your OH may be expected to reduce your working hours to get through the panel also.

Sorry you are finding it so difficult, sarah

play2day

orlwaysbroke wrote:

DOES THAT SOUND WRONG TO ANYONE ELSE?

YES

Try here for advice
http://www.fostering.net/england/fosterline.php

thesaint

Seems like I was right then.

Bossyboots, The point I made about it being a voluntary arrangement (section 20) was made because too many people are led to believe that social services have removed the child so I must be entitled to something.

The parent (as you know) could equally go and get the child back and would be committing nothing wrong. I do not believe the local authority are going to go to the trouble of setting up payments.

The O.P. was approached by social services to look after the child while they sort out the allegations. Basically she is staying at a friends house. If one of my son's friends came to stay at my house, would Social Services pay? Why should they, I did it voluntarily.
Once they have accepted the child into the house as they did they are on a loser financially.

It is not as simple as I painted it, as we both know, but it boils down to that.

Zara33

OP it's emotional blackmail thats all :eek: it's a complete and utter farce! They place a child in your care for the well being of the child, but are not prepared to give you any finiancal assistance BUT if the child was placed with a foster carer (complete stranger), the foster carer would get an allowance for looking after the child.

In the long term if the child is going to stay with you full-time get the child benefit transfered into your name, then you will be entitled to child tax credits if you get any at the moment.
I do realise the huge affect this will be having on you and your family emotionally and financally Good Luck!! but please do not let the social services bully you into anything you are not 100% sure of.

Edit to say: Also a kinship carer gets less than an foster carer (go figure lol how they justify that is beyond me)

Ms_Chocaholic

It's not clear what the allegation was and is this the only child in the family and what age is she. Social Services should be putting pressure on the family for the stepfather to move out of the family home so the child can remain with it's mother until the outcome of investigations is known. In these cases, SSD often pay for the stepfather to be accommodated in B&B, allowing the child to reside in the family home and not feel as the one being "punished", having made an allegation and then being removed.

Unsure who's side mother is on, does she believe the child or her partner, obviously if she believes the father hasn't harmed the child, this will put the fear of god into SSD as mum not able to protect child from stepfather and therefore this solution may not ultimately work, though it's worth a try.

You need to raise this with the Social Worker as I agree with other posters, if you do not kick up a fuss they will drag their heels. Do raise my point with them though.

thesaint

You are right, Ms Chocaholic. The mother will often side with her partner and believe that Social Services are out to get them. Having Social Services 'remove' the child compounds this.

The problem is, if the partner was to move out after the allegation he would almost certainly be out on the street.
They will not pay for a child to be accomodated, so what chance the subject of their abuse allegation?

Getting expenses paid is hard to get paid even if they are fully authorised with receipts. Social workers can usually authorise payments up to £5 any more than this goes through a Team Manager. That's why I advocated speaking to the Team Manager earlier.

The system means well, but it is seriously flawed. Most people get fed up and go with the flow.

Ms_Chocaholic

thesaint wrote:

The problem is, if the partner was to move out after the allegation he would almost certainly be out on the street.
They will not pay for a child to be accomodated, so what chance the subject of their abuse allegation?

I am aware that this does happen - I guess because, in the event of having no friends/family to care for the child once it is removed from the home, then B&B costs are cheaper than foster carers payments. However this doesn't apply in this case as SSD are getting the child's care for free so they will not suggest this as a possibility but may be worthwhile OP putting it forward as a suggestion.

To the OP - does the child have any extended family members who could offer to care for her - grandparents, aunts and uncles, older siblings?

gravitytolls

orlwaysbroke wrote:

Thanks to all above.

She's 14, the only way to contact Team Leader is through the jobsworth on the switchboard (team leader in a meeting, team leader on flexi leave, team leader will call you back , etc etc).

As someone has ponted out, it does appear that they are dragging their heels in some fashion - but there's no way that I am going to threaten to return her to social services again - so we're at their mercy to an extent.

In that case, you'd better get used to having her around.

You've done a wonderful thing in taking her in, be very proud. Well done.

As for Social Services, unless you're basically saying, you'll turn her out if they don't come deal with her NOW, they won't do veyr much. They are over stretched, and have to prioritise cases. ALthough this young lady, and yourselves need support sooner rather than later, they will only see that you're coping and she's safe. Hence she isn't a high priority. I wonder if it's worth speaking to your GP for advice? CAB are marvelous, and they may be able to point you in the direction of other support networks, which sounds to me what you could do with right now.

Good luck, I think you're marvelous really.

thesaint

Ms_Chocaholic wrote:

I am aware that this does happen - I guess because, in the event of having no friends/family to care for the child once it is removed from the home, then B&B costs are cheaper than foster carers payments. However this doesn't apply in this case as SSD are getting the child's care for free so they will not suggest this as a possibility but may be worthwhile OP putting it forward as a suggestion.

To the OP - does the child have any extended family members who could offer to care for her - grandparents, aunts and uncles, older siblings?

Believe me B&B costs are much more than payments to Foster carers, it makes no sense but true. In my area a B&B is about £35 per night for a cheap one, I bet the 2 or 3 the council use charge more than that.

By contrast, Foster payments are about £70 per week

orlwaysbroke

Thanks again - it's reassuring to hear many of the comments (although a few do concern me!!).

Update - the teen has been allocated a Social Worker. Although he has repeated the same line almost verbatim about my wife and I being private fosterers, at least *** has someone else to contact.

He's even coming out to visit...

... next Thursday ( could've been worse, he wanted to call the week after - but I explained I was unavailable ALL WEEK).

Rather unencouragingly (is that a word?) one of his first comments was "so you want *** to be placed elsewhere".

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

It baffles me.

All we all want is a simple set up to let *** stay where she has chosen to stay, but as I'm learning fast, some Social Workers seem more slippery than used car salespeople. The difference is that I can normally walk away from a dodgy dealer - if I do that now there is likely only to be one loser.