support - yes we all need support

I must admit life has been a bit boring recently and I needed something to brighten me up.

To relieve the jaded monotony of the day, we got to go to a fostering support group.

Now I had better say that of late I have been very smitten and impressed with the professional standards of many of the Social workers I have come across.

Today however it was a meeting with the festering team.

A reminder of all that needs to improve.

Things started without us so we missed a bit of the opening bit about education.

But when the show started to discuss tax then it all got entertaining.

Now for the uninformed; income is a problem for the UK foster carer, no one seems sure whether we work or not.

Our status largly depends on who we ask and on the day of the week.

If you are planning your life and day to day things, then you should really do exactly as you are told like an employee.

If fostering has destroyed your life then you should go away as it's nothing to do with the agency.

But of course this got to comedy, turns out someone had been advised by their fostering worker not to bother registering for self employed income tax and they might be hit with hundred's of pounds of penalties.

This threw things and there was a fair bit of trying to squirm off the hook.

I love to help so suggested that, if they had been advised to break the law by a social worker, really this was something mentioned in the code of practice and it might be something the care council might consider as a fitness to practice issue.

As comments go, in the popularity stakes this was on a par with popping a rattlesnake into the lucky dip.

I was not the flavour of the month.

Things could only get better.

Errrh no,

There was good news - OH GOOD.

The inspectorate had just been through and they had been blown away. Never had they seen an agency so perfect, rarely had they found nothing to improve.

Not the case, I quipped, Harringey had a simply fantastic inspection report that got published about the same time they found that baby P was dead.

True actually.

That went down well thought I.

Or not.

But of course it got better.

Today they launched the childs guide to being in foster care.

On page three (hey page three!!!)

It says:

Some foster carers live alone, others are married.

Thinking this a hilarious print error, I made a joke of it.

I can't be a foster carer, i am neither.

That was Ok though, so the person next to me whose: age, gender, race, orientation and ethnicity are not important said:

I was in a civil partnership.

this was ground breaking - partnership I know about, but is management going to be civil any time soon??

There was of course even more.

we don't have to be PC do we?

Said the worker.

And of course - we don't.

Diversity, and inclusion is an optional extra.

Back we go to the code of practice and the Care Council

This is the sort of thing you sort out in induction training, not with someone who has been in post for many years.

But now we have it, to be a foster carer you need to be; living alone or married.

It's why I don't really fit in.


R