AboutRachel Expertise I can answer questions about fostering - What's it like to be a foster carer? Who to go to for help? Experiences with troubled children. Attachment problems. Leaving care. Long term fostering. Dealing with birth families. Working with schools, statements, EBD schools.
Experience My husband and I have been foster carers for over five years and we are currently long term carers for two boys. We have had one boy from the age of 9 to 14 years who is with us long term. We have done short term respite care, one year seeing a sixteen year old girl through to leaving care and long term care of another boy from age 10-11
Question My sister in law passed away 5 years ago leaving 2 young children. They have now also lost their father to cancer.
We are led to believe that if we take the children into our care we will receive little financial assistance from the government because we are related. Yet, if they were put into foster care with complete strangers said carers would be paid a substantial amount. Is there any way we can foster the children legally? Also, would the fact that the parents were not married have any bearing on our case as this means we are not blood related to the children's father? It seems wrong that we should be expected to accept the financial burden of bringing up the 2 children which as anybody with children will be aware is quite a commitment. We would like to look to the future with confidence that we will be able to support them into further education and give them the same priviledges we have been able to afford our own children but at the moment we are dubious about making this commitment without some financial assistance.
Answer In the UK you can foster as "friends and family" carers and you would receive similar maintenance payments as an unrelated foster carer. The payments are related the the child rather than to the carer. There are different levels of court order which place more or less responsibility (financial and legal) for the child on the local authority . Your local Children's Services/Social Services office should be able to advise.
I would have thought that the authority would be very interested in placing the children with you.
