Caring for other people’s children

Caring for your own children can be hard. Caring for other peoples’ children can be harder.

There are lots of reasons why people ‘step up’ to care for someone else’s children. Sometimes it’s due to parent illness, or occasionally bereavement. Sometimes, when Social Services are concerned about children, family “kinship” carers are asked to see if they can step in to care.

Peace Legal regularly advise family members, longstanding friends, and even professional foster carers in relation to their rights and duties and are successful in securing the support they deserve.

Julian Flewitt, head of the childcare team says “Although I have been doing my job nearly 25 years, I am still humbled by the selfless acts of carers who step in and do the right thing for weeks or months on end. Sometimes it’s sad when we become involved when things are already too late. I always advise carers to be clear about what they can and can’t commit to at day one and to be honest about the support they are likely to need.”

The most common response we hear is “We love ‘little Jimmy’ – we just want to do the right thing and look after him rather than be ‘in care’ – we’re not in it for the money”.

In the short term, that is often enough, but what happens when another mouth to feed becomes a burden? What happens if there are problems in relation to the child’s health, education, or behaviour? What happens if there are problems in relation to contact with the birth parents?

Much depends on who made the arrangement and whether Social Services have become involved. Peace Legal have supported kinship and foster carers for years to make sure that legal orders are in place and that carers can access support, funding, training and legal aid. We believe that “happy carers create happy kids”.

Julian continued “I’ve lost count of the number of carers who come to us for advice, thinking it’s simple, only to realise how much more we can do to make them feel secure and supported”.

If you are asked to care for someone else’s child, think first. Can you do the right thing, not just now, but potentially for months to come? Often local authorities will pay for independent legal advice to kinship carers and Peace Legal are your local experts who have helped families stay together for over 30 years.

Thinking about tomorrow will help you do the right thing today.

Call Peace Legal on 01226 341111, email at law@peacelegal.co.uk