Grandparent fostering a grandchild?

happyandcontented

I am the first to say that benefits can be over generous and that many people take advantage of the system, but not everyone who finds themselves in a position where they are asked to take on the responsibility of grandchildren is financially able to do that comfortably, given the age they are likely to be.

Who factors that into their financial planning?

NeilCr

FBaby wrote: »

I wonder how these children introduce their grandparents in these circumstances? 'Hello, please meet my foster parent, oh yes, she happens to be my grandmother but looking after me is stressful and tiring, so that makes her a foster parent!' Poor kid.

Nope. They would say - this is my grandmother. I live with her and she looks after me. Today we were on holiday from school. She took me to the park where we played football. Then we went for lunch. After which she had a visit from a social worker. Then she played games with me till teatime. After tea we watched TV. She is amazing - she is always smiling and never gets tired.

Poor you if you do not understand that.

One or two of your other points as you digress from your original assertion.

Yes. There should be more help available but it is not. We have to deal with the here and now.

Yes. I strongly agree that more help and support (and yes finance) should be there for Carers of the elderly

I believe that you cannot claim CB or CTC if you get the fostering allowance. I need to check that. ETA My local council appears to say no

https://www.kentfostering.co.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/23808/tax-and-benefits-for-foster-carers.pdf

What I was arguing against was your comment that grandparents who foster do it for the money. I do not agree with that at all.

Red-Squirrel_2

FBaby wrote: »

I wonder how these children introduce their grandparents in these circumstances? 'Hello, please meet my foster parent, oh yes, she happens to be my grandmother but looking after me is stressful and tiring, so that makes her a foster parent!' Poor kid.

Have you ever actually met or spoke to somebody in this situation?

I think you are being incredibly harsh and judgemental about people doing a good thing in a tough situation, and I think you really need to stop!

GwylimT

FBaby wrote: »

Quite a few fathers would argue this, with all those 'accidents' taking place. Still don't see what difference it makes. Grand parents don't have to take on their grandchildren if they don't want to either.


So make these services available to grandparents without them having to become foster parents and gain additional funding as a result.


I would claim the same benefits than parents do, tax credits etc... I have no issue with this, I have an issue with the fact that foster parents can claim these benefits in addition to the extra funding that comes from fostering.


And what about all people in their 60s who look after their own parents, exhausting and stressful too. Should they too claim because they didn't ask to look after their parents but it's better than going into care? They get CA and that's that. As a foster parent, you can get up to £400 a week and that is income that is not counted for tax credits purpose I believe.

I wonder how these children introduce their grandparents in these circumstances? 'Hello, please meet my foster parent, oh yes, she happens to be my grandmother but looking after me is stressful and tiring, so that makes her a foster parent!' Poor kid.

You really are a piece of work, how can a father argue it? If he didn't want to be a father he wouldn't be having sex in the first place.

You don't seem to grasp that foster children require incredibly expensive and intensive therapy, the reason such therapy isn't available is because on average a course costs £60k per child, that is before you consider the cost of not working, paying for hotels/renting housing near the very few therapy centres in the UK. Local authorities vary but the average funding for therapy is £3000 per child, however this is only available from most authorities if the child is in crisis and going to cost the authority more than £3000 due to said crisis. We were turned down for funding as our foster child hadn't been hospitalised due to self injury.

Upto £400 a week, unless the child has complex physical medical needs and you're a trained as a speciailist and therapeutic foster carer, you won't get anything like that to provide care, you're looking at £130. We were in tens of thousands of pounds of debt to provide for our fostered child, if it's so easy and comes with so much money why are councils finding it an impossible task to recruit carers?

Kinship carers are also regularly pushed into signing SGO's after 24 months with the threat of the child being moved on if they refuse, they tried and failed to do this with us.

You say poor kid, yet you want funding to be removed to prevent children leaving the care system and to reduce their life chances. We all know who is putting the welfare of children last.

Alikay

FBaby wrote: »

And what about all people in their 60s who look after their own parents, exhausting and stressful too. Should they too claim because they didn't ask to look after their parents but it's better than going into care? They get CA and that's that. As a foster parent, you can get up to £400 a week and that is income that is not counted for tax credits purpose I believe.

That may be true for some agency foster carers looking after very challenging children. My local authority pays £146.15 p/w for looking after a child under 5. That is a very low hourly rate. Contrary to popular belief there's generally no extra clothing allowance apart from a meagre initial grant if the child arrives only in what they stand up in. And a proportion of the money must be saved for the child in a designated savings account. Believe me, the grandparents are unlikely to get rich fostering their grandchildren. At best they will cover costs, but if they have to give up work to do it, they will be significantly out-of-pocket.

With elderly parents there is, quite rightly, carers allowance for the adult doing the caring and attendance allowance payable to the parent helps cover costs.

Pollycat

GwylimT wrote: »

You really are a piece of work, how can a father argue it? If he didn't want to be a father he wouldn't be having sex in the first place.

As someone who never wanted to have children with a long-term partner who feels the same, I can assure you that this really is not the case at all. :rotfl:

GwylimT

Pollycat wrote: »

As someone who never wanted to have children with a long-term partner who feels the same, I can assure you that this really is not the case at all. :rotfl:

So as people who don't want children were you using contraception? FBaby is suggesting that men don't need to and therefore have no blame or responsibility for a pregancy.

Pollycat

GwylimT wrote: »

So as people who don't want children were you using contraception? FBaby is suggesting that men don't need to and therefore have no blame or responsibility for a pregancy.

Well, fbaby quoted this part of your post - which doesn't actually make much sense to me.

GwylimT wrote: »

Fathers plan on an intend to become fathers, unless they have been raped. Grandparents have no choice as to whether or not they become grandparents.

And I can't see any mention of contraception.

GwylimT

Pollycat wrote: »

Well, fbaby quoted this part of your post - which doesn't actually make much sense to me.



And I can't see any mention of contraception.

That's because I'm not FBaby.

Pollycat

GwylimT wrote: »

That's because I'm not FBaby.

OK then.
As you seem keen to be pedantic, neither you nor Fbaby mentioned contraception (although I may have missed it).
So why would you ask if I used contraception?