With a new Government in place it will be interesting to see if there are any improvements in Social Care and Foster Care. With such a shortage of Foster Carers, at present, it needs some creative thinking to improve the way that Carers are treated. Most Independent Fostering Agencies (IFAs) provide a great service to their Foster Carers and most Local Authorities (LAs) have upped their game in providing better packages for Foster Carers. So why is there still an issue in finding suitable Foster Carers? Is it the perception of what the role entails? People I speak to always have this idea that Foster Carers are having to look after young people who are going to burn your house down or steal your car. I think we all accept that some of our Looked After Children (LACs) are going to have behavioural issues but that’s, probably, a small minority. Most of the young people I have been involved with have been a pleasure to care for and I have really enjoyed being their Foster Carer. So if the financial aspect of Fostering is fair and reasonable what else is there to put people off of Fostering. The new Government have stated that they will get rid of Zero Hours contracts, does a Foster Carer’s allowance count as a Zero Hours contract? Most Carers I speak to would like to see some form of retention payment when a Carer is ‘empty’ as finding alternative employment as a ‘fill in’ between placements can be very difficult. Maybe we are coming to a situation where Carers are paid an annual salary. There is an argument for this but that then opens a can of worms regarding tax and national insurance and things start getting messy. So how is this resolved? With a million people unemployed and the chance to earn money and work from home surely there should be no shortage of people who would be interested in becoming a Foster Carer. Is there enough positive publicity around being a Foster Carer to entice people in? There is a bit of a taboo, in Foster Care, about money. Nobody wants to be seen to be ‘in it for the money’ or money orientated. However having a young person, or several young people, in your house isn’t cheap. There’s clothes, food, heating, clubs, sports, trips out, pocket money and savings to provide for and none of those are cheap. If you look at a weekly allowance of say £450 and divide it by 168 hours (a week) it works out at £2.68 per hour. The fact is that you never stop being a Foster Carer, you cannot ignore a crying child at 3am or having to search for a missing teenager at 11pm you are a Foster Carer 24/7. So what is the answer? To be honest, I have no idea. It is nice to be respected as being someone who cares but respect doesn’t pay the bills when you are empty. The physical and mental toll of being a Foster Carer can lead to burn out and Carers leaving as they cannot cope. Also some agencies have simply become too big with organisations buying up smaller independent agencies. I find that the first thing that suffers in this situation is the level of support shown to Carers and the turnover of staff. Larger agencies have a habit of looking too much at the bottom line and not at the hard working people who play such a major part in earning them a profit.

Web Support and Security by 39D Services LTD
Share This