Fees for foster carers to help childen find homes

Wednesday 29 January 2014

Foster carers are to be paid a fee as part of a new plan to find new homes for vulnerable children.

From May this year Jersey's Fostering & Adoption Service will bring in the new fee in addition to the weekly expense allowances that carers already receive. The fee they get will depend on their experience and skills, but could be as much as £275 a week - or £14,300 per year.

The Island’s Fostering & Adoption Manager, Emmy Lindsey, said: “It’s important that people get paid because it’s such an important job.”

At the moment carers get a weekly allowance which Mrs Lindsey says is above the recommended rate and higher than carers receive in London. The allowance is to cover accommodation and living costs and depends on the age of the child – the rate for fostering babies is £195.59 per week and goes up to £312.85 for young people aged over 16.

Under the new fee structure, a recently approved and inexperienced foster carer will be classed as level one and will only receive the current weekly allowance. But the Service offers ongoing training and support and plans to get carers to a level three where they would receive £175 per week for one child, £220 for two and £275 for looking after three children.

Specialist carers will get the biggest fee as they will have some of the Island’s most challenging placements. These could be children with complex emotional or behavioural difficulties, some of whom have in the past had to be placed outside the island.

There is an annual drive in Jersey every May to recruit more foster carers, which coincides with the UK’s Fostering Fortnight  - the national awareness raising campaign.

Mrs Lindsey said: “This year we will also be targeting carers who could deal with teenagers and their difficulties in the hope of reducing both residential and off-island placements.

“Foster carers have this idea of teenagers that they are going to be difficult and very challenging but we have recently successfully placed teenagers - we give practical support and supervision and we are currently running an intensive training programme to help foster carers understand children’s behaviour.”