Foster care myths threaten crisis, claims charity

Misconceptions about fostering can deter would-be foster carers from coming forward, suggests a poll.

Myths about foster care are threatening a crisis in the service in the UK, a charity claims.

Some 10% of adults surveyed for Action for Children did not know fostering meant providing temporary care, confusing it with adoption.

And a large proportion believed those aged above 55, gay people, and men were barred from becoming foster carers.

“There is an urgent need to tackle these misconceptions,” said Darren Johnson, of Action for Children.

Figures produced by another fostering organisation have suggested at least 9,000 new foster families will be needed in the UK by the end of the 2013 to cope with record numbers of children in care.

Urgent need

The Fostering Network says there are now a record 61,700 children in foster care and with 13% of foster carers leaving the service each year there is an urgent need to recruit.

The Action for Children survey asked more than 2,000 adults about their attitudes to fostering.

One in three believed wrongly that you could not foster if you lived in rented accommodation.

A similar number were unaware that foster carers received financial support and wrongly thought they would be barred from foster care if they were not in full-time employment.

Many people also thought certain groups were barred from fostering – with 54% thinking over-55s were excluded; 16% that men could not foster and one in three that gay people would not be accepted.

An overwhelming proportion of those surveyed (96%) were unaware of the numbers in care in the UK – some 91,000 children.

‘Myth busting’

The charity has launched a myth-busting guide to fostering, hoping to encourage more people to provide temporary homes to children with family problems.

Mr Johnson said fear of rejection often led to delays in would-be foster carers volunteering themselves.

He added: “With myths preventing people from coming forward and the public not knowing the true extent of just how many children are currently in care, we are on course for a crisis.

“This could be prevented by helping people to understand that in the majority of cases they can foster and have a lot to offer a young person in care.”

Jackie Sanders, of the Fostering Network, said: “Fostering services face a big challenge every year, recruiting thousands of foster carers to replace those who leave and to provide homes for growing numbers of children coming into care.

“A wide pool of carers is needed to help fostering services find the right foster home for every child, first time.

“It’s important to bust myths about who can apply to foster, but it’s just as important to outline the skills that foster carers need, and to be clear about where there are current gaps.

“Across the UK there is currently a particular need to find people who can care for sibling groups, disabled children and teenagers.”

A DfE spokesman said: “Foster carers are the unsung heroes of the care system. They make an invaluable difference to vulnerable children – offering them routine, stability and loving homes.

“We want people from all walks of life to come forward to foster which is why are making it easier for them to do so. We are spending £750,000 to help councils recruit and retain a range of foster carers and have invested an extra £3.7 million to support vulnerable families and those already fostering.”

 Source: BBC 2013

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Do you want to foster? Questions to ask fostering agencies

Fostering Agency Support

All agencies will say their support is brilliant. But in reality what does this mean? Support is about you being given the knowledge to be a skilful and confident carer who provides the best care and enjoys being a foster carer. Suport is about being in touch with you on a regular basis, both by phone and visits to your home to discuss any concerns and for you to be able to get extra support if necessary.

All agencies will claim to deliver 24 hour support, seven days a week, 365 days per year. In extreme circumstance are they able to get support out to you quickly? You need to be confident that they are able to deliver what they say they can provide. Ask, how local their support is.

Fostering agencies operate a support system. When circumstances demand, a carer can access a local duty officer, a senior social worker or a Director depending on the nature of the emergency.

Ask to speak to foster carers from the agencies you have contacted, ask them what the support is really like and any
examples of how it has worked for them or if they have been let down.

Support should also include Carer Support Groups when agencies arrange groups of carers to get together to share
experiences and offer mutual support. Ask how frequent they are, how are they organised and what the groups discuss.
Properly organised and run, these groups can be an invaluable resource for a carer. If not they quickly become poorly
attended and a waste of time.

Some agencies will also run specialist support groups focused for example on Men who Foster and Children who Foster for the birth children of foster carers who also have a part to play in the fostering task. The best fostering agencies see support groups as invaluable. They are a great forum for allowing agencies to understand what issues currenty concern foster carers, enabling them to react in the best way. Most agencies will also have a calendar of social events for foster carers and the looked after children.

Thank you

We hope that you have found this useful and that it has given you a better insight about how to find out if an agency is
right for and your family.

Hopefully you will decide to take the next step and if so, we at Simply Fostering would like to thank you for becoming a
foster carer and helping the most vulnerable children in our society.

We value all foster carers, you are special people.

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Foster care – Medway children’s care service ‘inadequate’

Medway’s service for children in care has been rated as inadequate in a report by the education watchdog.

Ofsted’s inspectors said there were 400 looked-after children and 209 with “care-leaver” status when the inspection was carried out in July.

The report highlighted delays in the completion of health assessments and a shortage of nurses. Medway Council said it was making “significant progress” and improvements would continue.

Ofsted inspectors said following a previous inspection in January, work in Medway had focused on ensuring all children were safe.

‘Foster carers supported’

The report said: “However, many changes have been recent and have not yet had the opportunity to impact, so deficits within services for looked-after children remain.

“Inspectors saw no looked-after child at immediate risk of harm. “Overall, outcomes for children and young people looked after are poor in relation to their emotional health and well being, their educational achievement and continued opportunities for education, employment and training.”

The inspectors rated the service’s “capacity to improve” as adequate, saying the local authority was “actively addressing inadequacies”.

The report praised Medway’s record in avoiding changes in children’s placements, saying a “high number” remained for more than two years.

‘More social workers’

The report highlighted poor quality of information on children coming into care. Councillor Mike O’Brien, lead portfolio holder for children’s services at the Conservative-run council, said: “We are making significant progress.

“The council brought in a completely new top team when it realised that much work needed to be done to improve this area and we are pleased that Ofsted have recognised this.”

The council said it was recruiting more social workers, a new director of social services and a new service manager for children in care.

Directory of children’s services Barbara Peacock, who joined last September, said “There is a lot of work to do, and we are clear on that fact, but Ofsted acknowledges we are heading in the right direction.

Councillor Adam Price, the Labour group’s spokesman for children’s services, said: “I’m deeply worried.

“We’re hearing that no child is under immediate risk, but it is worrying that there seems to be poor quality in terms of information on children when they come into care and also go out of care.”  He said the authority was having to go as far as Ireland to recruit social workers.

Source: BBC News 2013
Source: OFSTED 

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Liverpool City Council fails to give adequate support to 340 carers

Date Published: 01/08/13

Around 340 carers in the Merseyside area will have their allowances backdated after an investigation by the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) discovered Liverpool City Council had been underpaying them for years.

The investigation was brought about after a woman, who had been looking after her toddler nephew following a domestic violence incident, complained that the council was not paying her the correct benefits.

She claimed that the council did not consider her nephew a ‘looked after child’. As a result, she missed out on the appropriate support and financial payments that would have been available to her if the council had accepted that she was a family and friends foster carer, and the care she provided was not a ‘private arrangement’ between her and the child’s parents.

Some months later, and with the help of Liverpool City Council, the woman obtained a Special Guardianship Order for her nephew. And, while the council did pay her the Special Guardianship Allowance, it deducted Child Benefit from the amount she received despite the government recommending this should not happen when people also receive Income Support. 

She also said that the amount she was receiving as a special guardian was lower than other foster carers in the area were awarded.

Investigating the individual case, the Local Government Ombudsman discovered a wider problem in the Liverpool area, affecting 340 carers city-wide.

It found that the council was failing to pay those foster carers who look after children aged 0 to four-years-old at the National Minimum Fostering Allowance set by government each year, and also failed to pay the Special Guardianship Allowance (a separate benefit for carers who have parental responsibility for the children in their care) at the same rate as its foster carers.

Nigel Ellis, Executive Director for Investigations at the LGO, said:

“Many councils struggle to recruit carers to look after children who find themselves – for whatever reason – unable to be looked after by their parents.

“So it is only fair that these people, who do such a good job of giving children the chance of family life, get the benefits and allowances they rightly deserve. These allowances are not ‘pay’ – they are used to clothe and feed the children being looked after.

“I’m pleased to say that Liverpool City Council has quickly accepted it is at fault and has agreed to backdate the benefits to both the complainant and the 340 other carers affected. I hope this swift response will go some way to alleviate the trouble the underpayment may have caused.

”I would urge other local authorities to look at their own procedures to ensure that carers in their areas are not experiencing the same problems that those in Liverpool have encountered.”

The LGO has recommended that the original complainant receive backdated allowances of £10,912 and be provided with notification about the rate at which she will be paid the Special Guardianship Allowance. Liverpool City Council has also agreed to pay that allowance without the deduction of Child Benefit while she is in receipt of Income Support.

Liverpool City Council has also agreed to carry out a review of its practice of deducting Child Benefit from those on Income Support in receipt of Special Guardianship Allowance.

The council has agreed to backdate payment of its Special Guardianship Allowance at the same rate as its Fostering Allowance rate from April 2010, affecting around 146 people. It will also pay all foster carers, looking after children under four, the Fostering Allowance in line with or above National Minimum Fostering Rates from April 2013 and will backdate the underpayment to April 2011, affecting an additional 194 carers.

Source: Local Gov Ombudsman

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Fostering Agency Parallel Parents' Leaflet criticised

Fostering Agency Leaflet

The leaflet has been delivered to council housing tenants in Leeds
A fostering organisation has been criticised for encouraging council tenants to avoid paying a spare room subsidy by giving a child a home.

Parallel Parents leaflets which have been delivered in Leeds say “Avoid the bedroom tax. Help change a child’s life. Become a foster carer”.

Carers are exempt from recent benefit cuts for tenants with spare rooms. Parallel Parents said the use of the leaflets was just one recruitment strategy.

‘Truly appalling’
Carole O’Keefe, who received one, said: “I find [it] absolutely abhorrent. “I wouldn’t consider foster care simply to pay my bedroom tax or to avoid the bedroom tax.

“Perhaps people who are desperate not to be evicted from their homes, they might well be the wrong sort of people. If financial gain was the sole motivation the applicant would not be approved”

British Association for Adoption and Fostering

Susan Stacey, a foster carer from Bradford, said she was “appalled” by the leaflet.

She said: “Foster carers must be dedicated to protecting and nurturing young people and not doing it for financial gain. “If anyone thinks that foster care is about filling a bedroom they are badly advised – it is the most stressful and yet the most rewarding thing l have ever done in my life, where the child always comes first.

“If l worked for the agency involved l would seriously consider looking for another agency, as their recruitment policy is well and truly appalling.”

Foster carers in the UK will continue to receive rent payments towards an “additional room” as long as they have fostered a child or become an approved foster carer in the previous 12 months, the government has said.

In a statement Parallel Parents, an independent organisation based in Stockport, said the leaflet was “just one recruitment strategy, a way of encouraging people to become foster parents”.

The British Association for Adoption and Fostering said a foster carer would only be approved if they “fully appreciate they are providing a child-focused service”.

It said: “If financial gain was the sole motivation the applicant would not be approved.”

Source: BBC 2013

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Fostering – Adoption: PM unveils ‘foster to adopt’ plan

Babies need a stable loving home as early as possible, ministers say
New-born babies being taken into care should be fostered by people who want to adopt them, the prime minister has said.
David Cameron has said the law in England will be changed to encourage more councils to do this - so more babies can find a loving home earlier. He says it is "shocking" that so many babies taken in to care at one month wait 15 months to be adopted.
The government has pledged to simplify and speed up the adoption process.
It wants babies to be placed with prospective adoptive parents before the courts have decided to remove them permanently from their natural parents.
This is already being done by some councils, such as Harrow, which is working with the Coram children's charity. In some cases, there might be disappointment for those trying to adopt, because the courts might eventually decide to return the child to its natural parents.

Go to Fostercarenews

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Foster carers - Changing your current fostering agency

Foster carers decide to change fostering agencies for a variety of reasons. Foster carers who have transferred their approval with our help have told us:

• That they had not been properly supported
• Their fostering fees and allowances were not competitive
• That not enough training or respite had not been offered to them.

Some foster carers told us that they experienced long periods of time without a child placed. As a foster carer, you are free to choose the fostering agency you foster for. We provide a free fostering agency transfer service for foster carers. Our qualified social workers are experienced in working with carers who would like to transfer from their current agency.
Find out more about your rights, how we help you to find the best fostering agency for you and your family and how we act on your behalf in confidence, to transfer agency.

Free transfer and agency matching service

London Fosterinf provides a free and confidential service available to approved foster carers who want to transfer to another fostering agency. As other people do in most jobs, foster carers may decide that it is time to move on and to change to another agency who may offer better support, allowances, training, respite and choice of placements.
If you make an enquiry, we assess your situation then identify a number of suitable fostering agencies for you to choose from.
If you decide to use our service and have children in placement at the time of transfer, we will pay you an annual fee of £1000 for each child as long as you are registered with the new agency and the child/children remain placed with you.
We are able to provide this extra funding because of the agreed contracts we have with over 60 fostering agencies who donate part of their ‘profit element’ with us and who are commited to supporting our foster carer’s transfer service.
We simply share the donation we receive with the transferring foster carer(s) who often choose to increase their level of respite care or have an extra family holiday which helps to reduce the stresses of fostering.
Contact us to apply to foster children.

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