Archived Forums

Well i'm with an agency and have 0 children in placement - but have also heard of lots of LA FC with no children in our area and other areas around the country. I have started shouting at the telly/radio when it is announced nearly every week that there is a national shortage of foster carers! 'I'm here!''I'm waiting!'alison123

GRRRR!Roll on the day when the government see sense and have a national register of FC like they do childminders and allow us to offer our services beyond the agency who in effect 'own' us, because they own our Form F.But of course agencies are not going to push for this because those of us who live near city and county borders could offer our services to more than one LA at a time and that might cost them Midge

We had a stage about 19 months back when lots of FC had no placements. We were pushing for our LA to take placements from other boroughs but they didn't want to import other people's "problem children"!I don't see how most people can look at fostering seriously when there is not a guaranteed income. We have been seriously considering whether my husband should stop work so we could be more committed to fostering but the problem is that fostering is not committed to us! If we then had a lot of time with empty beds we would have a problem.Hilly7

I'm fortunate in that I've only had two weeks of no placements in the last couple of years (would have been 4 but current bubs was born two weeks earlier than expected!). and am fortunate (for now at least) that I receive a very generous maintenance package from my ex or I'd not be able to foster. couldn't do it on fostering income alone particularly if there were often gaps in placements while I still have my own children to feed and clothe as well. it really is time agencies offered a retainer fee. I am sure we lost a few carers last year through 'shortages' of children to place and there were certainly many very frustrated carers just standing empty. stupid thing is though that some carers had more than one placement (ie from different families) while other carers stood empty. seems to depend a lot here on who is on duty when the calls come in, if its your own SW you get first dibs so to speak. I've certainly been approached about babies while other carers stand empty even though i've already had one in place (and am only approved for one at a time!). baby P case has seen a local rise in the number of children placed, particularly of babies.

Think this is a problem all over. My two little ones went off to adoption in July,through the summer hols I had nothing except a few respite placements. I now have a 7 week old baby but still have a place available. In our LA I know there are loads of carers with spaces also I speak to Sw who say that it is actually harder now than ever to get judges to bring kids in - despite Baby P. It is very hard and I am lucky as do some Bank work at local hospital which sees me through the lean times - SS dont like us working but dont seem to realise that we still run the big cars, houses etc whether we have placements or not.

What I cannot understand then, is why do they keep saying their is a shortage of Foster Carers? Surely it must be the other way round!

I think that it is sometimes hard to find placements which are cheap for the LA for some difficult to place children - primarily children with health problems, disability or teenagers. I also think that the LAs would like more choice of carers so that they can match more. In our LA there is very little matching for short term even though they say there is. The problem with matching, from the FC point of view, is that more matching means more waiting around for a placement. In an ideal world it is better to have more FCs and more matching but for this to work FCs have to be paid a retainer which they can live in and pay all their bills between placements. SS don't seem to see this. It gets me very frustrated. I refuse to help with recruitment campaigns because I don't believe that people are told all the facts when they apply to become FCs. Our LA continually says that they are desperate for more FCs.Hilly7

I rang Fostering Network. They said that from an overall perspective (nationwide) there are fewer foster carers with no placements now than has been the case for the last 10 years. We just need to be patient (!!!) We have SWs visiting next week for a possible LT placement....alison123

I hope that all goes well with your possible match, Alison.Hilly7

Where's the logic.. If an area is crying out for FC then surely it's only fair for the poor kids that they use carers in other areas...

Good grief. I thought it was only us adopters who had to wait around for ages (3 years in the process, so far, 1 year of which is since approval). Another Adoption Week is fast approaching where all kinds of info will be given out - not all of which seems to be the case for many people....The craziest thing seems to be that as far as adoption goes, lots of key people (ie social workers / Children Who Wait / Be My Parent) don't get updated with which kids / parents are still up for grabs, so to speak. So it seems pretty hit and miss as to who gets approached, plus lots of duplication / pointless enquiries. More luck, than much in the way of "ideal matching" as far as I can see.Hey ho.... blueberry2

I can understand your frustration, we were waiting for over 7 months for a placement and in the end decided to adopt, we now have 2 little ones and the youngest we were allowed to foster before we adopted her we had her from 2 weeks old, so she could live with her brother from the start so this worked out for us otherwise I think we would still be waiting, and for us it has all so far only taken just over a year from being approved for adoption to placement.vegi

well our meeting went really well, panel next month (for fosling who needs long term fostering) - so we could have a child in place Christmas-ish - after being approved for 18 months!!!!! We had almost given up - and had sent for info on adopting....alison123

hope it goes well for you. I have just agreed to take on a second (hypothetical not a real- yet!)bubs in an emergency, but would have to be a tiny one (under 6 months). my LA have had a load of bubs referred recently and they are running out of available bubs carers. hopefully I'll stick with just one but a part of me quite likes the thought of another teeny tiny bubs, just the logistics of caring for two under 12 months that does my head in!

OK, so no longer hypothetical!! teeny tiny probably arriving early next week, and is really teeny tiny so its out with the crib and double buggy! and off to mothercare to buy teeny tiny clothes (gave a load away only last week not having had any teeny tinies in a while!).

Would appear things are changing in our LA too. Most people I know are now full again - including myself, just today took delivery of a beautiful 2 year old boy. Maybe the local courts are finally waking up to the fact that unfortunatly some families cant be fixed and these kids need to come into care and be sorted quickly in order to give them the best future life chances - but I wont hold my breath!!!!Loadsofbubs - if only I knew where you were have tons of diddy clothes, still half the fun is in the buying!!!!

I love buying baby clothes!! fortunately am in a financial position where I can afford to, but it really is a bit of a bad habit and will I suspect mean less in the pension pot!! but the tags will be staying on til I am sure of the bubs size and that bubs is really coming, you never can tell with teh courts! all I know is the name really and am told bubs is really teeny tiny (not premmie as far as I know). but was also told last main bubs was really teeny tiny and turned out to only be teeny tiny and not really teeny tiny, so ahd to take a load of clothes back! will make a change though. current bubs is ENORMOUS!! hey ho, back to sleepless nights and tiny bottles again.

got a short reprieve til teh end of the week or even early next week. but is tiny rather than really teeny tiny, but will wait til I ahve seen the bubs before deciding which set of clothes to take back! am wondering how adoptive parents cope with all the waiting, I find this really relatively short wait frustrating and its only a week! and at the end of the day another bubs will come along if this one didn't.