Family Fostering

joolesw1972

Thank you for your replies, I do appreciate them, I don't think there is much point trying to get money out of mum as she has never worked is on benefits and is in a large amount of debt.
Thank you squirrelchops I will check out that link tomorrow, I really feel after doing more research tonight that the social worker knew what she was doing yesterday as she said a number of times about it being a private arrangement and even got my partner (we are both female btw) to talk to mum on the phone to both agree it, but initially we were only talking short term to give everyone some breathing space but I think when she realised that we didn't want him to go into care then she seemed to latch on to this, please don't think I am anti social worker, I'm not, but she knew what she was doing and she knew that we didn't know the meaning of what she was saying.
I have made some notes before I speak to her tomorrow and I will quote the information I've found, and if they refuse to make him a looked after child, I will make a complaint. Not sure how far it will get but we have to fight to get him the support he needs, he has been rejected by his real dad, mum and now step dad, we can't abandon him too.
Squirrelchops - he already had a caf I think because they have a family liason worker? Or something that was supposed to support the family and prevent it breaking down.
Another concern I have is that we hear mum is planning on going back to Egypt (she married some bloke there) and she is the only one with parental responsibility.
I will let you know if we progress tomorrow,
Thanks
Jooles x

Savvy_Sue

Molly41 wrote: »

I do know that you are entitled to the Child Benefit and may be eligible for child tax credits depending on your finances. The step father needs to stop claiming them in order for you too.

Get your claim in regardless of whether or not step father has agreed to stop claiming: it will force the issue if he doesn't get round doing it.

On Mooloo's threads you'll also find some very knowledgeable posters from the business end of SS: I'm sure if you PMed one of them and asked them to look at this thread they'd try to do so.

Of course one difficulty is that you're dealing with SS 2 hours away rather than your local, so meetings etc are going to be difficult.

And I'd start looking into schools for next year as well.

Nottoobadyet

Just wanted to chime in and say good on you. I'm sure you and your partner will be a hugely positive influence on this poor boy's life, and admire your courage in taking him on. I hope you get the support you need.

joolesw1972

Thank you nottoobadyet, I feel quite emotional today, wow how your life can change in just a couple of days!
I've spoken to the SW today and got assertive, I said that we were railroaded into agreeing to something that we weren't aware of the consequences of and that we want him to be assessed as a looked after child and us as foster carers, she said that they might not be able to do the assessments because we are out of area, which I think is rubbish! And we would have to return him to the area and he would become a looked after child!!! And be put in care!! What would be the point of that, can they not see that giving him and us the support he needs and we need would prevent that? When I was insistent she went to speak to her manager and rang me back to say that they need to discuss it with the foster care manager and will have to get back to us. I was calmer when she rang back and told her the whole background story and why we are concerned that if he goes in to care that his behaviour will continue to deteriorate and he will end up in the criminal system and we will lose the lovely caring lad that he is, he cooked spaghetti bolognaise for our tea last night and made my sandwich for lunch today, he is so bright, we just want to support him to be a good person and not another bad kid with a reputation.
Anyway we are going to do some baking now, am giving him a break from BBC bitesize!
If we can foster him it means my partner can either take a career break or work reduced hours to be around for him

joolesw1972

We have heard back from the Social Worker this morning, she is saying that they are going to make a referral to our local Social Services for a child in need assessment - but I'm really unsure that is sufficient for what we need (is this a CAF?), I am at work today & have left my partner with the info. When we spoke to the local SS dept earlier in the week, they said that they wouldn't do it as the responsibility remained with the LA he came from!
We have also asked for some emergency funding to help with child care costs, my sister's child minder has experience with troubled teens and could take him 1 or 2 days a week, but obviously this has to be paid for, then my partners Mum (his Nanna) can look after him 1 day a week which means my partner & I doing 1 day a week each until Sept, which we can just about manage (I think!)
squirrelchops - can you help us with this? Is a child in need assessment going to get us the support we need or do we need to push for a foster placement & have him assessed as a looked after child?
I've told my partner that if the LA say no, or the Social worker says that they won't fund the childcare costs, then we need a face to face meeting next week as tooing & frowing over the phone isn't as successful in getting your point accross - plus they keep quoting buts of the childrens act at us & if I'm sat there, it's easier for them to explain it & I can take all my notes that I've made to back up our case!
Why does it have to be so difficult to get the help you need to do something good???

freejunkie

I am in a simular situation but I am a year on now. We wanted to do what wa best for our nephew and ended up involving LA. It is a deliberate ploy for the LA to place children with family members with as less resposibilty as they can get away with, because it is cheaper.

They realise that family members only want to do what is best for the child and we are clueless to the procedures. (The mother was claiming benefits for him even though she didnt have him, and refused to help us). So for us we had to insist that if we didnt recieve funding we would have no alternative but to hand him into LA care, so nephew is a 'looked after child' and we now recieve 'Kinship Carers Allowance.' We also recieve child care fees on top of kinship payment.

However since we have recieved this funding they now class us as on the payrole, so we have numerous L.A.C reviews 6 monthly, attend training courses, social worker appointments (could be once a month during office hours). Nephew comes from london and we fron the midlands, and we have to travel for various appointments and are not rembursed. Also you will have to be CRB checked, personal history, medical history checked. It is a big commitment you are taking on financally and emotionally, and I wish you luck x

Hope this makes sense I accidently deleted, and had to rewrite twice

joolesw1972

Thank you freejunkie for your post, you're right this is a deliberate way to get out of any responsibility by social services for our nephew.
But I have got a bit of advice from an old friend who is a social worker and I've done lots of reading of various guidelines etc and think now we need to insist on a meeting as we aren't getting anywhere with phone calls!
We have given the situation lots of thought and we know it's not going to be easy, but we couldn't sleep at night if we left him to go into care, we both work in the care sector and I've been a registered manager with CQC so the background and enhanced crb checks etc don't really bother me.
We have a strong relationship and a good support network so I think we'll stand up to that sort of scrutiny! Mind you they were happy enough to let us take him on Monday without any checks!
We won't give up fighting to get him what he needs.

ali-t

freejunkie wrote: »

I am in a simular situation but I am a year on now. We wanted to do what wa best for our nephew and ended up involving LA. It is a deliberate ploy for the LA to place children with family members with as less resposibilty as they can get away with, because it is cheaper.

It is not a deliberate ploy because it is cheaper, it is because family should be looking out for family and should take responsibility for other family members.

Why should extended family members receive money to look after other members of their family (outside universal benefits like child benefit and tax credits etc)?

Foster carers receive around £30K PA depending on the child(ren) they are fostering and there was an advert today seeking foster carers in a neighbouring local authority to mine where they are paying £30-£40Kpa for foster carers. Why would a gran/aunt/cousin receive this sort of money for caring for a family member.

To the OP, well done on taking in your nephew. I hope it works out for you and you see him blossom under your guardianship. All the best

OP, you say that they were happy to give you him without doing checks on Monday. There is no way this would have been the case, they would have checked both police and social work records before any child would have been placed with you. They may not have explicitly told you that they would have done this but it would be very bad practice to place a child anywhere without background checks carried out.

Alikay

ali-t wrote: »

Foster carers receive around £30K PA depending on the child(ren) they are fostering and there was an advert today seeking foster carers in a neighbouring local authority to mine where they are paying £30-£40Kpa for foster carers.

The reality is that most local authorities pay their foster carers a heck of a lot less than this. Have just checked the list of allowances, and my council pay £169 per week for a 15 year old, less for younger children.

Dunroamin

Alikay wrote: »

The reality is that most local authorities pay their foster carers a heck of a lot less than this. Have just checked the list of allowances, and my council pay £169 per week for a 15 year old, less for younger children.

The amounts mentioned by ali-t are only paid to carers doing what used to be called "professional fostering" which involves the most challenging children and young people and can, on occasions, involve working almost 24/7.

As you say, normal fostering allowances are much lower than this.