Babies in care

[redbear]

Its all over the news how many babies there are in care and how low adoption numbers are... It makes me so sad! Im hoping to foster when im a bit older and we have a bigger house im thinking i would get so attached to babies tho and wouldn't want them to go! I always said to hubby if we couldn't conceve we would adopt... maybe we will one day.

Pointless post really its just really such a shame so many people want babies but yet adoption levels are so low x

 

[keepontrying]

I know how this makes you feel, its been my dream for many many years to become a foster parent - but financially its impossible for me. I too would get very attached but i think that if you didnt, and didnt give your all then you wouldnt be doing the best job you could.

I come into contact with fostered children as part of my job and i can tell you that not all foster parents are good - in fact one whos children came to my nursery was simply horrendous... after initially meeting her i sat in my office and cried for hours for those poor kiddies.

One day I hope to be able to fulfill my dream, have a house big enough to foster sibling groups that would be otherwise split up, take in children with complex needs that authorities find it hard to place and give them the love and support they need and deserve!!!

 

[littlemuffin]

I can understand what you mean, but my parents tried to foster, and the council made it so hard for them that the couldn't do it.

We were meant to have a boy come and live with them, they made 100 changes to the house (eg change the staircase as it was open and had to be closed, putting locks on doors and windows) so much, and then they found out that he would still need to go to school in North London and we live in Kent, and my mum was going to give up work, and they have a 3 bedroom house in a tiny village with fields all round them, we have 3 dogs, which the social worker said might have to go as the children abuse them, which made my mum cry. There is loads I can go on about, but my parents are amazing and wanted to help, and after fostering wanted to adopt, but the council made it so hard for them, and pushed the boundaries, that they couldn't do it. I also want to say that I think most of the above is made up by the social worker, I don't believe they would come in a hurt animals.

That is what is hard, as they would of given those children a safe and caring home, which I know growing up with them was full of laughing and love.

 

[BevG]

my mum has been a foster parent since i was 9. over the years she has mostly looked aftre teenagers and gee were they a barrel of fun but she did have a couple of littler ones, youngest was 3, she always said she couldnt do little ones as she gets attatched. at one point she wanted to adopt one of the girls she had who was 7 and the social services basically said no and then moved the girl on to another family. the government make it hard to adopt and to foster, so many checks and evaluations and they arent at all helpful and the money isnt good but my mum wouldnt do anything else, she loves it and we have many extra brothers and sisters that visit now, some who have had their own kids since. its quite nice to think that even after they have grown up were still family to them.

 

[redbear]

Its loverly to hear some nice stories about people who have fostered - i know my mum applied when my older brother was six and said she could only have children about his age or older because of my brother and they called her up and said there was a baby waiting - she had to say no,
but she did look after children from home (daycare) and got her nvq etc... she had a little girl that she was looking after while her mum went into hospital to have her twin sisters, unfortunatly the mum and twins passed away and so the dad had time to greave and sort himself out my mum had the little girl for a few months, Its a very sad story my mum had taken the little girl to visit her mum in hospital and she died a few hours later...
I think thats kinda why i would love to do something like foster, But at the minute im too young and our house is way too small but if we moved to a bigger house in a couple of years its something i feel passionatly about--- I know there are some bad foster parents out there and so would love to be a really good one the kids can remember

 

[BevG]

age isnt a factor, lol well unless your 16. i will probably do it one day when my house is done up to a decent standard and ive had my own kids but i applied once when i was 22 and the only thing stopping me was the standard of my house. they would have let me foster in a better place that had been fully decorated and done up but at 20 i didnt have the money to do that lol. there was a guy who was doing independant living with 16+ and basically was like watchman for sheltered accom for kids just transitioning from care and he was 21. he looked after a block of flats and was on call 24/7 for the kids if they had any problems.

 

[l_maclean]

I dunno if this is correct or not - but I did hear somewhere that there are a lot more babies "in care" now than there used to be because social services dont like babies adopted right away incase the adoptive mother changes her mind - they go into foster care for a while so there is a sort of grace period.

I keep telling DH I want to foster eventually - although preferably when my kids are a bit older. I used to work nights in a special needs school and there was a young girl who lived there - without any kind of special needs - simply because they couldnt find a foster place for her. She was in care because of abuse, and the f-parent she had been with had to give her up due to ill-health - and at 13 she was a very difficult to place age. It was such a shame cos she had no peers in the school and just wanted a family.

xxx

 

[redbear]

I no age isnt a problem to them but it would be me who would want to be older and have money to spend on making the house safe and nice for them...
how can people spend all the time trying to adopt to change there mind thats crazy who would hand back a baby! poor little guys.

 

[l_maclean]

Oooops - sorry - didnt mean adoptive mother - i meant birth mother - like in case she really regrets giving the child up - its with someone who's not expecting to keep it.

xxx

 

[NinjaKitty]

Here's the thing. Does those numbers include surrogacy adoptions? I've got a friend who has a beautiful 12 week old son who was born via the surrogacy route. She can't carry a pregnancy past 9 weeks so after many years and many failed attempts her SIL offered for her. So the baby is fully biologically hers and her husbands. They still have to go through the full adoption thing. So it strikes me that if these sort of circumstances which are becoming more common these days are included in the figures then the number of adoptions of children in need of a family are even lower?

It breaks my heart. I understand that any prospective home needs to be vetted carefully but it does seem that councils hold would be adopters up to difficult standards. Surely a loving family home is better than no home at all. I refuse to believe in a developed country with literally millions of homes that there are not 3000+ suitable homes available for those children that need them.

 

[redbear]

Deifinatly agree Ninja Kitty- apparently its now only 60 children a year adopted- maybe because of IVF been so much better these days and surrogates becoming more and more popular - i also heard because of all the regulations they make you go through people are adopting from abroad instead...
There where people calling up saying it took five years for them to adopt--- thats a joke surley they could make it quicker and still do as many checks on the couple/ house etc. x

 

[BevG]

to foster your house practically has to be a show home so id hate to think what they want from ppl to let them adopt. its all about how it looks on them with the social services nowdays not what is best for the kid

 

[unicorndawn]

sorry I can tell you that since the main adoption bill came in it has always taken about 3 years to adopt and that is with a good family doctor and social and you hope an easy situation on the childs side. The failure rate for people trying to adopt in the UK is staggering beyond belief and it saddens me every day at work i too have cried my eyes out more times than i care to mention.

 

[BevG]

yeah, its not even the social workers, its all the red tape and regs that make them virtually powerless!

 

[redbear]

Yeh the social workers can probably tell in about ten minutes if a couple is fine to adopt but it takes such a long time because of all the red tape- Three years of a childs life is ridiculous its such an imortant time and they could be with the family not in foster homes.

 

[vampybear]

im a social worker in fostering so a lot of your comments make sense, but some of them are possibly media led!

adoption- yes not enough adopters, and not enough foster carers at the moment in this country, its awful!
The most awful thing is there are not enough people out there willing to adopt slightly older children- I have kids on my caseload at 8 years old who are already being caled unadoptable because adopters only ever want babies or toddlers. It is soo awful that people wouldnt even consider slightly older children who have spent many more years dreaming of having someone to call their own.

Fostering- you do get paid for doing this, and whilst your house needs to be safe, i have some carers whose tastes are not as show home as others- it is more about what you can offer the child.
But bear in mind kids in care and those being adopted all have issues stemming from their birth families, which a lot of them will have for life, so it can be very hard to live with someone who still after years of you trying to teach them something simple like how to clean their teeth or not to take things from ur kids rooms, they will still do it and have no clue themselves why they do it.

but it is very rewarding- there are independent fostering companies out there that can provide extra support compared to fostering for your own local council, i work for an independent company, as we are the ones that help train the carers and help them fight against some of the social workers when they dont make amazing decisions for the child!

Kids from mixed heritage are the ones not adopted the most, and me having a white mum and black dad, i have always wanted to adopt from this bracket once i am older and financially able to, lets just hope this recession stops sometime soon!

 

[redbear]

Vampy bear - Yeh its such a shame that not many people want to adopt older kids...
there was also a woman on the radio her and her husband wanted to adopt a mixed race baby because they lived in a mixed race area and thought they could give a good home to a mixed race child but where told they couldn't because they where white and had no mixed race themselves, But does it really matter what race the child/ parents are aslong as they will give a loving home i personally wouldn't mind what race a child i adopted was its just a chid isnt it? xx

 

[vampybear]

yeh i dont think it matters what origin you are, you should be able to adopt a child from any background, but the adoption agencies unfortunately dont do that. the main reason is (which is actually a good one) is that they want the child to be able to identify with the parents roots and background, so they can form their identity as best they can. It is harder to do that if your parents are a completely different ethnicity to you.
But it is still do-able, so they shouldnt limit it to this, especially when their is such a shortage of adopters! But they are starting to slightly relax this now, probably because they have no choice lol

 

[BevG]

my mum was prevented from adopting a 7yr old girl she had been fostering for a year or two because if she had adopted her they would not have let her carry on fostering other kids even tho the girl in question was happy and settled and working thru her issues nicely. instead they chose to move the girl on to long term foster parents as they felt my mum was too attatched. she almost quit fostering because of the way it was handled.

 

[vampybear]

wow thats awful. i guess i dont know the context of the situation and the SW's reasons for doing so, but i can see why that puts people off fostering!!!