A grandmother who has been caring for her grandson since May 2014 without any financial support has finally won her battle with Stoke-on-Trent City Council.

The grandmother’s two grandsons were removed from their mother’s care by the council in 2010 and placed into stranger foster care with the mother’s consent. The grandmother was not in a position to care for the children at this point.

In May 2014, the eldest grandson ran away from his foster carers to his grandmother’s house. A social worker then asked the grandmother whether he could stay with her. The grandmother agreed on the basis that the council would support her to care for him financially. Eight months down the line, she contacted Ridley & Hall as she had not received a penny from the local authority despite the promises made to her.

Helen Jarvis, trainee solicitor comments; “I visited the grandmother to take her instructions and was shocked to hear that the council had promised to support her financially. They then went back on their word and refused to have anything to do with the family. The grandmother spoke of how she had no alternative but to reduce her hours at work to care for her grandson. This meant that she was in a financial mess. The grandmother was also looking after her disabled daughter. She simply could not cope with the additional outgoings and was at breaking point.”

Miss Jarvis wrote to the council in order to get them to recognise that the grandson should have been classed as a ‘looked after’ child; “I thought that this was a nailed on case. However, shockingly, Stoke-on-Trent responded to deny their involvement with the family and stated that it was the child who had made the decision himself to effectively no longer be a ‘looked after’ child.”

Commenting, the grandmother said, “The council’s approach was outrageous. My youngest grandson was desperate to live with me and his brother. The council advised that should he run away from his foster carers, like his brother had done, I would then be in the same position again. They explained that they would have no responsibility to either child as they were old enough to understand what they were doing. The children were aged 14 and 12.

“My solicitors had to write threatening court proceedings before the local authority finally agreed that they were responsible for these children. She told me she had never had a case where the local authority has said that a 12 year old is competent enough to understand complex legal status and what this means for him and his grandmother. It is totally ludicrous. The children simply wanted to live with their grandmother instead of with strangers!”

Miss Jarvis explained, “The council placed the youngest grandchild into the grandmother’s care and she finally received around £7,500 in backdated fostering allowances. She now receives £180 per week per child which is in line with the council’s fostering allowance rates. The local authority is in the process of assessing her as the children’s foster carer.

“This is proper procedure which should have commenced when they placed the first child in her care. I am appalled at the way the local authority acted in this case – I am convinced that had we not stood our ground, the council would have placed the youngest grandchild under the same terms as the eldest. They would have left the grandmother to struggle. Ultimately this could have led to a placement breakdown which would have been devastating for the children’s emotional well-being and the grandmother. I hope that Stoke has revised its outlook on family placements following this case.”

For further advice on care matters, please contact the Kinship Care team at Ridley & Hall on 01484 538421 or via e-mail.