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We see social workers struggling to manage huge caseloads and it has become harder for them to spend time with the children and young people in their care, as they feed the hungry machine of legislation and data collection and so on. This stifling bureaucracy takes them away from the reason most of them came into social work – to make a difference in children’s lives.
We began our fostering journey via an independent agency – the first one that popped up when we typed ‘fostering’ into the search engine – and we naively believed their marketing. These agencies are a mix of charitable, not-for-profit and private companies, and it can be difficult to tell the difference from their websites, but we soon learnt that most are owned by bankers and venture capitalists who make millions from the agencies recruiting foster carers to look after local authority children. It feels like capitalism has been allowed to run amok in children’s social care.
We responded to the national call for more foster carers but, after successfully going through a rigorous assessment process, the agency we were with still couldn’t find us a placement after more than a year. We began to wonder if there were any children who needed a foster home.
Millions of pounds of public money is somehow lost to tax havens while carers like me have to fight to get even the basic resources and therapeutic support for our foster children. In 2014, £3 billion went to the looked-after children’s budget and £1 billion of that went to the independent fostering agencies.* I shiver at the thought of shareholders feeling happy that more children are going into care – it feels like children’s misery has become a commodity.
I think we all agree that the best outcome for a child going into care is a good foster placement that offers a safe and secure home for as long as is needed. But so many good foster carers are leaving; tired of being bullied and disregarded, they say it simply isn’t worth it. Unfortunately, carers have no rights or protection. They are often subjected to malicious and mischievous allegations from foster children, their families and sometimes even social workers. I have seen foster carers and their families destroyed as allegations go forward without good evidence or a decent hearing, and this takes time and money away from the work and results in the loss of more foster homes.
If governments genuinely want to improve children’s lives then they need to look after the people who look after the children; they should divert the money back into children’s social care, improve these children’s life chances, and stop lining the pockets of people who want to develop their own wealth portfolios.
Abuse isn’t particular to any one social group. It is found freely among the whole social strata – which is why we need carers from a wider reach of backgrounds. Foster carers have traditionally been a husband and wife, with the wife being the primary carer. I believe we need to attract a more modern fostering workforce that represents all the backgrounds of children in care. When social workers threatened me with foster care if I didn’t behave (and as a foster carer I would hate to feel that we are a punishment for behaviour caused by trauma), I would have willingly packed my own suitcase if they’d told me I was going to live with a gay couple who loved the Arts and shopped at Liberty. But I know I didn’t want to live with another family. I didn’t like my own family and the thought of living in someone e
lse’s would have been awful.
Teenagers are the hardest to place. For many, their experiences of family life have been harmful and chaotic, so the traditional family model may be too much for them. Someone else’s family unit can feel like a foreign country: new smells, different food and rules. Teenagers may work better with adults who are not trying to be a parent but a friend who takes responsibility for them and does right by them.
I would love to see a new attitude in fostering and adoption. My drive is to know that vulnerable children will get a fair chance in life and learn how to free themselves from a traumatic childhood. Perhaps all young people should be educated in what the consequences are for children, parents and society if a child is abused or neglected. We should collectively join up and teach them about the responsibilities of having children. Cycles of abuse can be stopped through good education and the necessary support being there for vulnerable people. If we cannot get this right, then we are simply behaving like undertakers sending out assassins. We have to tackle all the cycles of abuse. But we also need to be sure that foster carers – who are so important to these processes – are treated with respect.
The true character of a society is revealed in how it treats its children.
Nelson Mandela, 1997
