Assesment Foster Care & SGO

[Paleo1994]

Hi, myself and my husband are currently going through assessment for the care of our granddaughter, she was born April, she has been in our care since early May, we were made temporary emergency foster carers on the 23rd June,
We understand the need for security for her and why the SGo needs to be a long term option, we are at the early stages of the assessment, references been requested etc. we are booked in for the training required Sept through to Oct, this would then allow us to have the extra fee payment too, our query is if the SGo goes through before we complete the training then we wouldn't be awarded the fee, the mother is, from this week only allowed to have baby 3 times a week for 3 hours on her own, or unlimited hours if she is supervised by either us or either of her parents, her partner (our son) have signed an agreement to say they won't be together during the 3 hours together, due to the awful arguments they have together, among other issues.
Also the earning limited to be awarded should we be granted the SGO is leaving us undecided if its best for me to give up work completely, I wonder if anyone could tell me what percentage of the allowance you lose on earnings above the limit of 38K? or is it pound for pound
Also although they have paid for full time funding for baby to go to nursery since 6 weeks old, this is stop this week, meaning to keep her in a nursery we would have to fund this ouselves, which makes my working less viable plus we not happy that such a young baby is in nursery at all, hopefully it would also help our application for the SGO by showing my commitment to her in my giving up work to look after her. Providing we can be awarded a payment then we can survive without my having to work
Our constant worry is if the SGO isn't granted or the Foster Care approval and if they took her away from us, we hope in time the parents who are a couple and doing everything they need to do to have their baby home, we don't expect this to happen in the time frame being asked of them but we do perhaps in the next couple of years
I wonder if anyone can tell us of any reasons they might refuse the approval of both foster care or SGO, neither of us have any criminal history etc, we have a huge family home offering baby her own bedroom, we have a good extended family support on both sides of babies family, the only issue is our son (the father) history of violence towards us on a couple of occasions and a fight he's had in our home with his brother on 1 occasion, on each occasion where my son was aggressive and threatening behavior we called the police to show him his behavior would not be tolerated, we thought we were acting as responsible parents and not that in the near future these actions would come back to bite us, we are only talking 3 or 4 occasions over a 2 year period on the latest occasion where our two sons had their only ever fight this now shows up on our crb's for a purpose such as this so again is a concern and again we made our middle son go to the police to make the complaint to show both boys this behavior wouldn't be tolerated.
Back to the contact, we feel that as they are allowing baby contact with her mother then this suggests that they have some trust in the mother and that an sgo is a little premature? or are they just ticking boxes to show they have allowed them every chance to get their acts together, then that leads me to wonder is that what they are doing with us too, then will take her away.

Any advice appreciated, off to work now and perhaps all a little hurried apologies for this.
Regards
Very Worried Grandparents

[ozzy3396]

Hi Paleo. We have had our SGO for going on 2 years. Our Granddaughter came here when she was just a baby. The assessment is very long winded and we found it strange that we had to have CRB checks etc. We just rode with it and after the court granted the SGO we then realised that infact it was'nt to bad at all.
As for money , we do get a payment every fortnight but we are pretty sure this will end soon. So please discuss that with your grand childs social worker.
As for contact , at first our granddaughter was to go to her parents once a week then they were to come here once a week. We changed this sometime ago due to safety concerns , they now come here. We have not got a contact report , the courts have left the contact in our hands so we changed it in order to protect our granddaughter from possible harm. I think Childrens services are just covering all bases with you.
We worried , and once the SGO was granted still worried at times but now we have realised our granddaughter was placed here because we are able to care for her and to show her love. She see's her parents but here under our supervision.
If you read through the post on here you will see you are not alone. Many grandparents have had the same worries as us and yourself. Please do not worry , enjoy the love of your grand child and let things sort themselves out. Judging by your first comments it mirrored our situation. We got through the process... ok i have a few more wrinkles but our little monkey is worth it.

[Paleo1994]

Thank you Ozzy & Irene, its very reassuring to hear other stories like both of yours, we have no skeletons Irene of our own, only problems with the Father (our son) an one incident with the eldest just worry these will effect all this but feel reassured having read your responses and lots of other discussions on this site, than you

[Help 1870]

we hope in time the parents who are a couple and doing everything they need to do to have their baby home, we don't expect this to happen in the time frame being asked of them but we do perhaps in the next couple of years

This could have an impact on the granting of SGO or even fostering if it became widely known it was your view. SGO is a permanent order till a child reaches 18. Its not and never has been intended as a 'holding position' to give the parents time (however long that may be) to sort themselves out and get their children back. Regardless of the parents bahaviour there are timescales relating to the child that have to be taken into account. Children cannot and should not be expected to hang around in limbo for the adults in their lives to get their act together and become responsible.

If the decision has been taken that SGO is the best option then that decision has been made because its not believed the parents can turn things around within the childs timescales nor maintain those changes, so permanency is the best option. Plans for contact have no impact on that, contact is for a different purpose and not necessarily for reunification.

If your view and hope is that the child should be returned to the parents, and you are prepared to do that, then a Residence Order is more appropriate than an SGO.

In terms of SGO allowance I dont know who told you that 38k is the limit, its certainly nowhere near that level. Allowance is usually calculated using the amount of money you would be entitled to if you were claiming Income Suppport as your allowed expenditure (currently £112.55 pw for a couple and £65.62 pw for each dependent child) If your income, less certain expenses, (mortgage, council tax and a few other obscure items) is more than the Income support rates then this will be classed as disposable income. for every £1 in disposable income you will be deducted 50p from your allowance.

It looks to me as if SS have spotted a very good opportunity to get a child off their books, to have limited involvement with the parents in terms of parenting support to enable them to keep their child, and to do it all at minimal cost to themselves.

[Paleo1994]

Thank you help1870 for your post, in relation to the SGO, all through this process we have been lead to believe that like you say this could be a permanent arrangement until baby is 18, of course we have considered this possibility and more than happy if that's what happens, the fact that they are allowing the parents unlimited contact with supervision plus, the mother 3 times per week of 3 hours alone with her, plus the parenting classes and assessment they are doing with them among other forms of help for other issues, meant to us that they have every intention of letting baby back to them should all that go well, calling it parallel planning with the sgo as a back up should they fail, it is for this reason we assumed that's what could happen if they turn things around, we know nothing about such arrangement's and its all new to us hence my post and scanning this site for advice and learning from other peoples experiences.

In relation to the part you ask who told us about the payments, then it was the fostering team doing the assessments, they said if we earn over 38k we would not get the full allowance and over that amount its a sliding scale?
I am looking at the letter now, it says 'Calculation of Income, Income taken into account for the purpose of this review'
it then lists several sources of income ie tax credit, maintenance, savings over 16k, then the last one on the list is Gross Income over £38,000?

I agree on your last paragraph too, its all such a worry. So many people telling us different things.

[Help 1870]

If you send me a pm I can help you calculate roughly how much SGO allowance you would be entitled to. I wouldnt trust the local authorities explanation of what the income level should be. Its always useful to have an idea of how much allowance you would get so you are going into this fully informed and there are no surprises when its too late to do anything about them.

[Paleo1994]

That's kind of you to offer but not necessary we can just wait to see what they after we submit papers etc, no immediate hurry now as we have a few weeks to decide about my work (just broke up for 7 weeks!) thanks again