Foster carers demand government help in tackling malicious allegations
The The Norfolk Foster Care Association has criticised proposed government reforms to the foster care system, saying they do not deal with the growing problem of false allegations, which it claims are discouraging potential foster carers.
In a letter to Education Secretary Michael Gove, chair Raymond Bewry said that when children are removed from foster care after allegations of abuse they are not returned even if the allegations are later proved to be false.
The association is demanding that foster carers get a “fair trial” and that the government monitors how local authorities deal with complaints more closely.
Mr Bewry said:
“It is clearly important that this needs to be addressed if responsible people are to be encouraged into fostering, and to continue as foster carers”.
He added:
“If you want to recruit people you need to offer them the right protection and necessary support.”
The government reform programme must “take the bull by the horns and tackle the real issues”, he continued.
The government has pledged to do more to recruit and retain foster carers.
Photo by Visit Greenwich via Flickr under a Creative Commons licence
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3 Comments
vob on January 21, 2013 at 10:23 pm
There should be more scrutiny once a ‘foster carer ‘ is recruited. Every allegation should be reported and investigated.
In Leeds 2012 there was the reported case of two male’ foster carers. who had been abusing children for years; they are now in jail. This was a reported case. There are many cases that go unreported in the media.
mark on April 25, 2013 at 11:10 pm
Well ive just had a possible allegation made against me which is completely false and threatens a twenty year career in working intensively with traumatised children, my world and everything Ive worked for. The child making up the allegation is also a highly traumatised child who I have done NOTHING but care intensively for and show love and understanding. Although ive managed to avoid it up to now, its actually quite a common act by a child who is terrified by the world, completely alone and very very confused. If the gov want us to work with these kids there needs to be some more protection or money for extra staff, security etc. Single Carers especially are always very vulnerable to and have little protection from false allegations by the very nature of the work, and that is unfair, as its a job very few want to do but is so very important. The reason he made it? .. Because he was pissed at me for grounding for him for walking out of school…fair?
Kaz on April 28, 2013 at 12:48 pm
We to are now going hrough the allegations process and even though the allegations have come bk unsubstantiated this is not good enough as we have to have this on our records,and even though they were malicious and we have verbal evidence of this they donot wish to label a child malicious but we have to have it hanging over our heads that it was unproven but could have happened but they ave no evidence, no they have no evidence because these things would never have happened in a million years. This system needs a complete overhaul and whilst we understand there is need for a procedure but what happened with innocent until proven guilty, you are treated like nothing less than a criminal.