Kinship care: Sheffield carers welcome new payments to help support families

A new kinship maintenance allowance is being introduced by Sheffield City Council, starting at £170 a week for children aged up to four, rising in three more levels to £249 for young people aged 16 and 17.

The allowance, agreed last month, should benefit 850 carers who currently receive less support.

The allowance is being introduced to support kinship carers, who take on the main care of a child from their extended family or a close friend when their parents can’t look after them.

Debbie, aged 56, and husband Steven, 61, live in Norton Lees and look after four of their grandchildren – a boy aged seven and three girls, aged 13, 12 and nine.

The couple became kinship carers when their daughter had a breakdown in her mental health while pregnant with her son.

Debbie explained that social services became involved when the school alerted them about the oldest two girls.

Debbie said: “The plan was that we would have our grandson from birth and the girls went to live with their dad. After eight months he said he can’t cope with them.

Hectic

“My grandson was handed straight over to us. He was born in January and we were going through court.

“It was coming up to the six-week school holidays when the dad said ‘I can’t cope’. The girls came to us in September and a special guardianship order was made in November.”

Debbie described the family’s daily life: “It’s hectic. They all have additional needs and the two eldest have been diagnosed with ADHD.

“The second one also has autism and the youngest two are waiting for assessments for ADHD and autism. It can be very hectic when they all kick off with one another.

“I worked on school meals for 20 years and when the girls came to us I was taking the two eldest to school and the two youngest to a childminder and I lasted a week! I couldn’t do it.

“Social services were saying ‘Are you going to pack in work?’ and I went ‘I’ve got to try it to see what’s what’.”

Life very quickly changed for Debbie and her husband, who decided to retire early from work last year. He will be 72 when his grandson, who is the youngest child, reaches 18.

Essential

The couple have two cars to take the children where they need to go – Debbie said that’s essential as they’d never cope with travelling by bus.

All the children have special needs so they require a lot of support in the mornings to get ready for school and they all attend different schools.

One granddaughter has just started at special school in Barnsley, so council transport picks her up and Steven and Debbie drive the youngest two, one of whom is at an integrated resource across the city. The eldest walks to school nearby with friends.

“It’s gone from going to work, doing your own thing, to back to nappies and potty training and school. That was fun!” said Debbie.

“I thought ‘oh my god, how did I do it first time round’!”

The couple get some time to themselves at the weekends, when the children see their parents.

Debbie said: “Our respite has been watching Sheffield United on Saturday afternoons. We have a drink before and after the match.”

Difference

The new kinship maintenance allowance will help pay for the children’s activities, said Debbie. “It’s going to make a hell of a difference,” she added.

She also believes that children in kinship care should automatically be entitled to free school meals.

Families have trouble negotiating the bureaucracy surrounding what children are entitled to because the rules are different depending what type of court order, if any, governs the children’s care.

These can include a special guardianship order (SGO) or a child arrangement order. Many families have found they are not entitled to any financial support at all.

“Some friends didn’t get anything because their children aren’t on SGOs or they’ve gone privately to make an order with a solicitor,” said Debbie.

She is pleased that the system is becoming fairer in Sheffield, especially because families are saving the state huge amounts of money.

“Our youngest two would have been adopted and the oldest two would have gone into foster care. But I wouldn’t, I said I’m not having that, no chance.”

Godsend

Rachel Eyre, who lives in Herdings, explained how she became a kinship carer: “My daughter has ADHD and autism and she couldn’t manage to look after Kyla when she was born and I stepped in. I got the special guardianship order through court.”

Rachel has three children and another granddaughter to her eldest daughter. Her son Ben, aged 18, who has autism, also lives with her.

She said: “When I got Kyla I had to virtually start from scratch with a baby.”

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Single parent Rachel says that her days are busy with looking after both Kyla, aged six, and Ben, doing the school run, shopping and housework and taking Kyla to swimming and dance lessons and other activities. She also supervises Kyla’s visits with her mum as she isn’t permitted to see her alone.

Kyla and Ben are both keen on winter guard, which is a type of synchronised majorette-style dance using balls and flags. Kyla got interested at the age of four when Rachel took her along to Ben’s sessions.

Boost

Ben is a champion at winter guard and Kyla has a silver medal.

For Rachel the new allowance is a welcome boost to the family finances, coming soon after she was transferred on to to Universal Credit.

“It’s an even bigger bonus with us being on Universal Credit,” she said.

“Kyla gets to do extra hobbies and whatever else she needs, especially clothes with her growing so fast. She’s recently gone up two shoe sizes!”

Debbie and Rachel are both members of South Sheffield Kinship Group. It was set up by two kinship carers two years ago with the support of the charity Kinship (website: https://kinship.org.uk/). This week is Kinship Care Week.

Rachel said: “I didn’t even know about it until I just happened to see kinship care on Facebook. I emailed then and went along and I find it helps a lot.

“It’s helped me explain to Kyla that she’s not the only one in her situation.

Depression

“She started asking us ‘why don’t I live with my mum and dad?’ I explained that mummy can’t look after you, neither can daddy, so Ninny’s looking after you.”

Ninny is what Kyla called Rachel as a toddler when she couldn’t pronounce nanny and the name has stuck. Rachel joked that at 49 she’s too young to be a nanna.

She said that joining the group meant Kyla could meet other children in similar situations to her – many kinship carers are grandparents.

Rachel said the group also has benefits for her: “I didn’t know half of the things I know now. I didn’t know there was support out there, just thought I was on my own.

“I was spiralling into depression. Because I’ve been able to talk to others it’s helped and I’ve got a better frame of mind now.”

Invaluable

She said that social services support disappeared as soon as Kyla was seen to be safe. She didn’t even know she would receive a guardianship allowance until she got a letter.

Debbie, who organises events for the group, said it has been invaluable.

“We just support each other. One of the ladies said ‘if it wasn’t for this group, I wouldn’t have learned a hell of a lot.”

The organisers of South Sheffield Kinship Group said: “We meet every three weeks to offer support and friendship to any kinship carers who would like to join us, regardless of legal status, court order or where they live.

“We focus on what it is like to be a kinship carer and we support each other when issues arise. We also have speakers, and social events for adults and the children.

“If anyone is interested in joining us or asking about the group, please phone or text 07969297870 or email us on [email protected].

"We would love to hear from you!”