Thousands of foster families are being put at risk because some councils are withholding vital information about the children they agree to take in, campaigners have warned.
Quite vital information, too, for the safety of the carer’s family:
One foster carer, a former manager for a fostering service, told of a child who had been placed in a home with six cats.
"We weren't told he had killed them [cats] previously."
And not least for the foster children’s safety:
And she recalled a girl she had fostered "where it hadn't been shared that she was going to commit suicide by jumping in front of a train. We have a railway at the back of our house".
The councils, of course, shrug their shoulders and say ‘Not us, guv!’:
Responding to the concerns, David Simmonds, chairman, Local Government Association's children and young people's board, said: "There will be examples when it is not possible or appropriate for councils to disclose everything about an individual child, for example children in the middle of complex court cases or when a child is placed in an emergency foster placement."
Yes, there will. But neither of
these examples seem to fit that bill, do they?
Useless lazy incompetent social workers (again)?
ReplyDeleteEach child in care has a case history folder, so information may be passed on when the child moves on, and these sorts of errors are avoided.
Almost certainly!
ReplyDeleteOr if not lazy & incompetent, too scared/politically correct.