Thinking of fostering

[Ibby]

Actually the issue is about foster care - thats what the OP started the thread for. She wanted information and opinions about the pros and cons of fostering.

If you re-read the post again, you can see I meant "issue" in the context of it being a problem. Anyways, I think those people who are able and kind enough to foster children are great people who deserve high recognition and respect.

[cosywolf]

There are two issues here. The OP is asking about fostering.

 

Several others have opinions on Social Services.

 

Although the two do go hand in hand to some extent (you can foster for other organisations than Social Services, look into it, Amanda, as some private agencies offer better terms though often older or more difficult children and siblings) perhaps it would be an idea to split the two arguments up.

 

This thread is the place to discuss the merits and otherwise of fostering.

 

Issues with social services could (and doubtless already does) have another thread all it's own.

 

Why go off on a tangent and put off people who have a real wish to provide a caring home for children in need, regardless of what went before?

[cerebrum]

I may have initiated this row, because I would say that fostering and the ss go hand in hand. You cannot separate the two because without eachother they would have less means of taking children away from their homes.

 

If the OP is about fostering so too it is about the children, and how they are really ending up in foster care. I was pointing out it is a subject of much more consideration that simply fostering children. It is whether as a foster carer you would be fostering children who really need it, or perpetuating the corruption that is going on.

 

I totally agree there are children who are truly in need, I need not spell out the consequences to children in abusive homes. I don't think any right-minded people would deny the existence of abuse.

 

I was enlightening however any person considering foster care, that they do it for the right reasons and so that they do not simply join in the corruption and 'believe' a child is in need and perpetuate the criminal activity which IS going on.

 

I am not alluding to errors or flaws in the system, but to the 'little hitlers on a power trip' (as .... has justly coined the phrase) which exist within it, and how the closed courts have given licence to this stagnant environment where this corruption is thriving as we speak.

 

I would liken it very much to bringing back the death penalty on the chances of executing 10 guilty for every 10000 innocents.

 

The system needs to change if not be scrapped, and potential good foster carers need to be aware that they may be joining into something which they do not realise hides behind their philanthropy.

 

This is not about attacking social workers, as some have risen to defend. This is about standing up for children who are being abused by the system and for human rights of families who are not involved in child abuse.

 

Children need to have RIGHTS not just NEEDS as is the law today. Perhaps then the abuse within the system can end, and we no longer need to make potential foster carers wary of what they are getting themselves into. Children who really are being abused, or feel abused, do not say 'I want to go home'. Or at least in the C21st children should be heard not just seen.

[redrobbo]

When a mum tried to kill herself in the middle of the night, and was admitted to hospital for life-saving treatment, I was extremely grateful that I was able to ring up a foster parent at three in the morning, and place her young son in a safe place - with foster parents.

 

When I returned from a week-long activity holiday in Snowdonia with a group of teenage boys, only to discover that the parents of two brothers were unavailable to care for them (as their mother was in hospital with injuries having been violently beaten by her husband - and he was under arrest and in police custody for the offence), I was extremely grateful that I was able to find foster parents who could look after the two boys.

 

When a father drowned his wife in the bath on a particular Saturday night, (witnessed by one of their children) - I was relieved that I could place the two young girls in the care of foster parents.

 

When I removed a four year old girl from the care of her mother on an emergency protection order on a Sunday afternoon - because she had over 90 unexplained bruises and injuries to her tiny body - I was so grateful that I could find foster parents who were willing to care for this litle girl.

 

When a mum abandoned her baby and disappeared, I was able to place the six month old infant with caring foster parents.

 

Having spent most of my adult life as a social worker, my list of experiences where I have needed the help and support of foster parents in extreme and immediate circumstances is endless.

 

I do not for one moment suggest that fostering is not without its difficulties, but there are specialist social workers who provide support and assistance if the going gets tough.

 

Fostering can be for short term placements, or long term placements - dependent upon individual circumstances. Fostering provides stability for children in need. Fostering is both worthwhile and rewarding.

 

I've seen the sharp end of life too many times. I've seen too many children in distress, suffering from physical abuse, neglect and psychological trauma. I've also seen what caring foster parents have been able to achieve for such children, and how they have been nurtured and helped.

 

I hope that the OP will reflect on how children in need can be helped by caring foster parents, and consider their next step.

[cerebrum]

All of the cases you mention may be perfectly true. However consider these scenarios with a slight variation to challenge the point, and witness the twisted truth that occurs in some cases.

 

The mother who tried to kill herself did not achieve her goal, and no longer feels the same as she did on that particular 3am. Her son was removed from her care to strangers in the middle of the night, dazed and traumatised by his ordeal. When other willing family members or friends were available who her son knew and he would have been more comfortable with, if the social worker had taken the time to check her address book or ask. The boy desperately wanted to return to his mother after hearing that she was well and able again to look after him better than before the incident. However social services deemed her unfit to have her son returned to her care and her son was placed in permanent foster care where he was unhappy and mentally tortured by comments that his mother was not fit to look after him, because ss workers and their sycophants deemed it so to balance their accounts whilst guised as acting in the best interests of the child.

 

Again instead of contacting family members for children who surely would have been old enough to give names and addresses; as on trips in Snowdonia; ss put them into foster care, so that even the mother who was the victim of a crime could not have her children back for some time even after her recovery. Whereas at the same time the ss permitted the father access to his children, but the mother had none until she was out of hospital as though it was her fault.

 

Where a father is accused of killing his wife when really she had an accident in the bath or killed herself. Going through this trauma and accused of a crime, his children are taken from him at such a difficult time for them all, and placed in foster care, against all their wishes, before any facts are established, he is guilty before being proved innocent by social services. Once again no family or friends were allowed to take the children in. Presumably because this would not meet ss targets or generate any income, although it would save taxpayers money and the children would be happier and could continue to be monitored.

 

My aim is not to argue whether redrobbo's account is accurate in defence of social workers, but that the scenarios I have proposed also happen and that these children and their families need defending. It is possible that some of the extreme and immediate circumstances are constructed by social workers and that this is the element of soul destroying corruption I am talking about.

 

IT IS A CRIME which if outed many social workers would find themselves behind bars. So in the same vain as argued by another social worker already to this thread - why would social workers jump up and admit that they had done something wrong and profited from the misery of children, for that promotion or new house, or holiday in the tropics?!

 

How for instance, would you account for social workers being alerted to a household consisting of only a mother trying to kill herself and her son at 3am in the morning?

 

As for the young child with 90 bruises all over her body taken from her home on a sunday afternoon by social workers waving a protection order. And why wait until sunday afternoon if the bruises had been found presumably earlier in order to know that the child had bruises in the first place? Could it be - there were NO bruises at all when she was taken from her mother?!

 

There are countless accounts of children taken for made up allegations, by a corrupt core of social workers, from innocent families. Are you suggesting redrobbo that these children and families don't matter or don't exist?

 

The social workers that have commented in this thread have been very defensive, as though this was an offence against the social workers. I think this captures a snapshot of the closed minds of social workers. It is typical of any group where a few have spoiled the reputation of the rest. However there exists a silent population of 100,000's of people in this country alone, suffering the offences of social workers upon children and their natural families.

 

I would imagine that concientous and caring foster carers would want to establish facts before profiting from the misery of children and their families. Perhaps for it to be a truly philanthropic act, payment would not be involved - only the financial needs of the children to be met and the living costs per child to be met as they occur not in advance, and not leaving the spending on the children to chance, and really foster carers are really money laundering and children either remain badly treated or become worse off than they ever were.

 

Many parents accused of abuse are then imprisoned without trial. One particular case that comes to mind is of a parent who was caught by a teacher giving her son a coat when he was visibly shivvering in the school yard in just a t-shirt, the teacher subsequently informed social services and the parent was arrested and imprisoned for breaking a court order. Although the childs best interests were obviously not being served by any other than the parent that day.

 

There are countless other stories, and much more grim. Foster carers as individuals should join the fight against these injustices not just buy into the accounts of social workers. Good social workers have nothing to fear from more transparency in the system.

 

I am glad if I have provoked more thought on the subject as it is one that deserves serious consideration by all involved or potentially getting involved.

[Kashul]

My friend is a foster carer and I can assure all that the children she has had to date have greatly needed her love and security...It is probably the hardest job there is, many of these children have been damanged by their homelives and either witnessed or suffered things that NO CHILD SHOULD.

 

She has saved the lives and given futures to so many children that otherwise would ahve ended up on the nasty side of statistics.

 

If you have the energy, patience, understanding, love and commitment then go for it, but always think about the childs best interests and fight for that.

 

I wouldnt foster for the council though, In my limited experiance I would say that agencies are better, the one my pal works for is wonderful, not just for the looked after child but also in supporting their carers.

 

Good Luck with it hon, hope it turns out to be what you think it will.

[trixi]

a child can gain so much from a good loving home, looking after any child isnt easy, but very rewarding. good luck with the fostering

[bagger]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=470864&in_page_id=1879

 

Interesting and disturbing article.

[Ibby]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=470864&in_page_id=1879

 

Interesting and disturbing article.

 

It just reaffirms what I said earlier. Sad really.

[cerebrum]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=470864&in_page_id=1879

 

Interesting and disturbing article.

 

 

 

It is sad. It is also criminal. The family courts are corrupt. It is a fundamental Human right - the right to a family life. Without being proven guilty of any offence hundreds of thousands of people are being deprived of this right and of their children. It is a criminal injustice both on the grounds of human rights and against the children whose needs ARE fulfilled within their own family.

 

It is peculiar to suggest that Foster families are as good as Natural families. Your natural family is not paid to look after you as a child. Perhaps if this were taken out of the scenario there would be no foster families. No surrogate families either which they are mistakenly purported to be. A surrogate family would not be paid nor accept payment. Therefore foster families are not simply taking children in out the goodness of their hearts. They are part of the system, and they are being used by the system, if not manipulating the sytem themselves aswell.

 

Children will want to know where they come from, who they came from, and how they came to be where they are. This cannot be provided by foster carers or adoptive parents. How? You were found on the doorstep? You were taken from your family because they were accused of abuse that was not proven? What devastating damage does this do to children in the long term? I cannot speak from experience but there are countless accounts of children and young adults disaffected with the social care system since it began. Now countless families who are being accused and having their children taken from them with no justification.

 

This 'social conditioning' of some on the forum to accept that the ss and fostering is the answer is truly complete. I expect some peoples minds are still closed to children being taken from unmarried mothers pre 1980's. Many of whom were abused in the care system or in nunneries or by clergy. This situation is much the same now only far too often for secular reasons of gain by social workers and their cohorts, not morals.

 

It is happening to disabled or those with poor IQ, next gay perhaps, next perhaps those on low earnings and single parents (this time any sex single parent), ethnic minorities (to be ridculous perhaps - claims that they do not fit the mainstream values???) and soon any reason they can name, too old, too young, too fat, too thin, uneducated, unmarried cohabitants, vegetarians... who knows. As steadily as people accept this attack on family life it will increase its span. More will be affected than those now disaffected. It is as pervasive as it is pernicious. This is truly dangerous territory and the UK is forefront in this terrorism of families. It is a nazi-like regime. I would not be one of its collaborators hiding behind the phrase 'in the best interests of the children'.