It is estimated that 200-300,000 children in the United Kingdom who cannot live with their parents are being brought up by grandparents, older siblings or other wider family members or friends. This may be because of parental mental or physical ill health, domestic abuse, divorce or separation, alcohol or substance misuse, imprisonment or bereavement.

Grandparents or wider family and friends are asked often at very short notice to become the carers of children. They might be asked initially just to care overnight or for a week or two. But days can become weeks, weeks become months and months can lead to them becoming long-term Carers.

Our Adoption Specialist Lawyer Nigel Priestley is currently representing some family friends of a mother who unexpectedly died in hospital. She was from Eastern Europe but the younger children had been born and brought up in England. The father is allegedly violent and lives outside the UK. There was no one who could care for her three children so Sam and Joan stepped in. They were both working and good family friends of the mother. The children hadn’t had the easiest life and are very needy.

Sam and Joan needed support and advice. What if the children needed to go to school? What if they had medical needs? Sam and Joan didn’t have parental responsibility and the right to make key decisions for the children. The Local Authority were hopeless and the lawyer whom they consulted was inexperienced in this area of law. They were in a mess and they needed specialist advice.

They are family and friends carers who believe the children are best with them and research tells us that they might be right: Children raised by family and friends carers who offer more stability and commitment than unrelated carers feel loved and secure and report high levels of satisfaction.

The children have experienced similar adversities to those in the care system but they and their carers received much less support. Many family and friends carers live in impoverished circumstances which impacts on the children. In fact, it can cost a lot of money to instruct a solicitor and proceedings can quickly become complicated.

Sam and Joan were badly advised. When they started proceedings to get an order for the children they then found themselves in a complex legal area because the father said he wanted the children to live with him. This would mean uprooting them from the only country that the children had lived in.

They can care if they receive financial help but they will struggle if they don’t and they are not alone.

What does research say about carers’ finances? 

3 out 4 of grandparent or kinship carers experience severe financial hardship. 

Joan had to stop working to be able to take the children to school – and be there when they were back. In fact, 49% of kinship carers had to give up work permanently to raise the children.

One grandma commented “I lost my job as a direct result of having time off to attend court, care for the baby and attend his hospital appointments etc. My husband took redundancy and we had to sell our home and most of the furniture in order to pay the legal costs and fund a move of over 350 miles away to ensure the safety of our grandson…”

Many such carers face crippling legal costs to secure the child’s future. Stopping a grandchild from being adopted can become such a focus that grandparents use their savings to fight the Local Authority.

8 out of 10 people agree that family and friends carers should receive financial support. The costs of putting a child with a local authority foster carer can cost a Council over £350 per week per child on average, with a private fostering agency over £800 per week and in residential care upwards of £2500 per week. 

But often it’s a fight for carers to get a weekly payment from the Local Authority and much depends on the circumstances that lead to them becoming carers. After a battle, Sam and Joan are getting a weekly allowance for the children and they are enjoying the new challenge and change to their life together.

All sorts of people have grown up in kinship care including President Barack Obama, Morgan Freeman, and Naomi Campbell. The people Ridley & Hall‘s specialist team advise aren’t well known, but they do need expert advice.

Sam and Joan had to track us down to get the advice and representation they needed. They live in the South of England but distance doesn’t matter.

Ridley & Hall is the leading firm in the country advising grandparents and other kinship carers. When decisions have to be made which may have a lifetime impact on both the carers and the children, it’s critical that they get specialist advice.

If you have a similar matter and require legal help or advice, please contact us on 01484 538 421.