As a foster child (currently or formerly), how important was/is going away to college for you? Did you have the proper funding?
Thanks for asking. I mean mine was a while back. The system worked pretty well for educational needs / funding then, so the government probably changed it to a nightmare because they don't like systems to run too close to efficiently in England.It wasn't important to me whatsoever.It was desperately important to about half my foster siblings, higher than my friends who weren't in care. Usually to get as far away from their early life as possible.I wasn't aware of any issues with funding for college. Although we all had jobs as well. In some cases social workers arranged the job. Obviously hardly any of us had any one saving up a college trust for us. Most social workers are very supportive of educational aspirations and the system does make some allowances for foster kidsI was in advanced classes,so I went younger. I hated it but because I was 'special' (puke lol), funding wasn't an issue.Second time at college (when it was an age appropriate environment), it was better. I had grant funding and help with accommodation costs which had become rare by then. I worked for an event company, in two bars and a hotel as well as one job a month freelance prop and antique buying while at college and graduated with low debt. My jobs taught me about a billion times more than two degrees.As the local authority is your parent until your caRe order ends they have to financially assist or help with scholarship applications in some cases. I was being nagged to do medicine, I think funding for medicine , legal or veterinary or extended length degrees might have been an issue after 21. I'm not cut out to be a doctor personality wise. I did not want to study another day. Or practise on dead people.They definitely encourage the military. So they pay for college and it frees up a fostering space.
Why aren't you allowed to leave your foster child with foster family relatives?
To give some background, this is my last question: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AvjtU1znCqg.I0GPhs30GC3sy6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20100801031313AAniFZW I do understand about all people caring for the child being appropriately screened and checked of course. But what is strange to me is that foster parents can approve sleepovers with their foster children's school friends if they feel it is safe and appropriate. So why can't we use that same judgment with our family members? We have to put our foster daughter into respite care which we are going to hate doing, as her bio parents won't agree to her leaving the country. We do recognize the harm it may do to our FD and are going to try and handle it as well as possible. But it really irritates me that I have my own mother, my sister, a cousin and several close friends who our FD knows and loves, who would be more than happy to have her. They have even offered to do police checks and meet with the social workers etc. But because they are not already pre-approved parents it isn't allowed. Doesn't this seem ridiculous? Obviously you wouldn't go palming off kids you were fostering every weekend, but in certain situations wouldn't it be far better for the child to stay with 'family' rather than strangers?
Please help me understand food rationing with foster children.
I have been reading several foster parent blogs where the children they are fostering are accused of "hoarding" food. The foster parents go to great lengths to lock up food and create food control rules in their houses. Two taboos that foster parents seem to be obsessed over are their foster children taking food without permission and having food in their bedrooms. I am really trying to understand this issue. The foster parents say that they need to create these rules because food hoarding behavior stems from "birth" parents depriving the children of food. But aren't foster parents doing the same thing? Aren't they being as neglectful as the "birth" parents? For example, a foster mother was complaining that she "needed" to sleep in until 8:30, but her inconsiderate foster children (11 and 13 y-olds) expected to be able to "leave their rooms" at 6:30 when they woke up. AND they wanted breakfast when they woke up. She thought that they should wait to eat until she was ready to get up at 8:30. Then she went on to say that when she was a kid, she only needed one meal a day and so what was up with their need for food more often than that? Other foster parents on the blog fell all over themselves to identify with the "food hoarding" and to support her "house rules". I bravely posted a comment about "allowing" them to have a healthy snack in their room for when they woke up and got my head bit off for suggesting that it is unreasonable for ravenous teens to want to eat when they first wake up and that it was perfectly fine to expect them to wait in their rooms for 2 hours with an aching hungry tummie until foster mommie dearest could get herself out of bed. So does food hoarding behavior justify depriving foster children of 3 meals a day at the times they are hungry? Are foster parents who ration and control food being abusive? What am I missing here? Does anyone know how to report suspected abuse by an anonymous foster parents?
What's your opinion on people who stigmatize & hate foster children?
I think that people is stupid. My sister was adopted (we live in Spain, she was born in China) and when childs we had some problems to. Some of my friends have grown on a foster home and they also had problems. In Spain, at least, most of foster children haven't had an easy live and this is something people is scared about, even when I think is just stupidity. Statistically, children who grown in foster homes have a higher chance to be at jail (I volunteer in one) just because not all them have a chance to have a regular childhood (biological abusive parents, several foster homes... That are the kind of things people think about when hear "foster children"). In my opinion the biggest isue is that people that always think bad of those who don't now and doesn't give a chance. Childrens shoulden't be hated or stigmatized by adults, never.