Still worried!

[peggytoof]

Hi guys,the latest is the case to decide if my niece goes home or not is back in court today.we think she wont be going home just yet.We had a visit from the LA last night,the lady was eager to find out if we where going to go for "friends & family" or "SGO" but after checking her paperwork it seems other members of the team want us to go for SGO.We were told if we choose F&F we will get an allowance of approx £143 pw,this we think(having never had a child of 8 before)should be plenty to look after her.However we are told that an SGO is the better way to go regarding PR,we are told if we go for SGO it will be means tested but should work out roughly the same.What worries me is everything goes ahead and then somewhere down the line the LA decides to cut that allowence.in the first instance we MUST be able to carry on meeting our financial commitments as normal & i dont want my niece to come & live here & then not be able to give her what she needs/deserves! We have meetings set up for the next 3 weeks to go through the F&F/SGO paperwork,madness if you ask me,considering my niece has been "looked after" since 2nd Feb & only 2 wks ago we where asked to fill out CRB checks,and not till next wk will we start the "in depth" forms regarding us/our lives ect.Anyway any thoughts from you guys would be fantastic,kind regards PeggyToof x p.s between us my husband & i earn approx £36k a year any guess as to how much financial help we would recieve ,thanks x UPDATE!!!!! the court decided not to return her to her mum,i breathed a sigh of relief as i cant see her mum has made any of the changes needed,im told now that it could take a minimum of 16 wks to complete the training/paperwork needed before she is placed with us!!!!!!!!! ;(

[David Roth]

Hi PeggyToof, I hope the court hearing last week went as expected for you and your niece.

You do need to weigh up what would be important to you in deciding whether you would prefer to be family and friends foster carers or special guardians.

As family and friends foster carers, there should be a certain guaranteed level of support. You should be paid the same level of fostering allowance as all the borough's other, unconected foster carers. You should also receive certain support services, such as training, your own supervising social worker, regular visits, out-of-hours support, etc. However, you would not have parental responsibility for the child, and you would need to get the local authority's agreement if the child was under a care order before taking many key decisions.

As special guardians, you would have parental responsibility, and you would be able to make most key decisions about the child without consulting anyone (see our SGO advice sheet for details about limits to this). However, although the local authority can support you, financially and with support services, this support is discretionary. Financial support is likely to be means tested.

You would be advised to get the local authority to provide you with details of how much financial and other support you could expect with an SGO - for example, how much would the SGO allowance work out at given your present income level. You would be advised to get this information in advance of the final hearing and the order being made, as if the local authority hasn't given you details of the support they will provide before the order is made, you will find it a lot more difficult to get the support afterwards. The assessing social worker is supposed to put details of your support package into the SGO report, but sometimes this gets missed out.

In terms of SGO financial support, you could also ask them to agree in writing that your SGO allowance will continue to be calculated on the same basis as it is when the order is made. It will probably always be means tested, so that if your income goes up the allowance will go down, but what you want to avoid is the calculation being changed, so that the allowance goes down while your income stays the same.

For detailed legal information, please do take a look at our advice sheets, particularly numbers 19, 21 and 22: http://www.frg.org.uk/need-help-or-advice/advice-sheets

[peggytoof]

thanks David,we had a meeting tonight to talk about us,our family tree,a health & safety assessment & pet questionaire,we are told by our social worker that our niece's sw wants us to go straight to an SGO not F&F care.We would prefer F&F first ,moving on to SGO later as we feel we will need the support, not having had children ourselves,we would happily move onto an SGO in say 6-12 months to ensure both we & our niece are all happy & settled with the situation.if our assessment goes well could they turn us down if we dont agree to go with the SGO immediately? thanks Peggy

[David Roth]

Peggytoof, unfortunately the local authority may have one eye on managing its budget. SGO can be a less expensive option for them, as special guardians do usually get a lower level of support overall. In addition, if you have not reviously fostered the child before the SGO was made, then you are not entitled to insist that the local authority assess your need for support and finance.

The local authority may try to suggest that you are not confident or committed enough if you don't go straight for the SGO. You can point out that if you were adopting your niece there would be a period when she would be 'placed for adoption', before you applied for the adoption order, to give you all time to decide if this really was the right thing to do, but there is not such provision if you are applying for SGO. Asking for the child to be 'looked after' with you for a period first could give you a similar period to the 'placed for adoption' period.

You should always be able to show the local authority and the court that your guiding principle is going to be what will be best for the child. One of the things that will assist your niece is if you and she get proper support, and fostering her for a period would be one way of ensuring that support doesn't drop away once the order has been made, while giving you time to confirm in your own minds and your niece's that SGO would be the right nex step for you.

[peggytoof]

thanks David,you are i mind reader i think,the exact reason we want to F&F foster first is because with the best will in the world we dont really know how she& we will cope with such a huge change in all our lives.First & foremost we all have to be happy & settled.We think its the most sensible option,im not afraid to admit its going to be a huge learning curve for us all.Ultimately we want the best for her & although i understand they have to consider the financial side of things,if we hadnt said we wanted to care for her it would cost the LA a huge amount more,we dont want to get 2 or 3 years down the line & be struggling to keep a roof over ALL our heads,we want to be able to give her a stable home,something thats been lacking up till now,if we won the lottery ,i would still need the emotional & practical support,kind regards Peggy x