No Fostering.
 

Not if you are a smoker that is.

Redbridge Council in London is planning to prevent smokers from fostering children under 5 and disabled children with breathing difficulties.

Although I agree with this plan in principle it would be more complete if Redbridge Council also included homes in and around towns and cities where vehicle exhaust emissions linger for hours or even days.

Re: No Fostering.
 

Obviously it would be best if nobody smoked full stop but I do think the restrictions on foster parenting are a little over zealous.

I realise that prospective foster parents need to be fastidiously checked but the authorities are bringing issues such as weight and smoking into it and it seems like nitpicking to me.

It is not good to smoke around children but it doesn't stop them loving the children.....does this just apply to those who smoke in the home or also to those who go into the garden for a smoke? :confused:

Children who need foster care need good, caring,honest, loving, patient parents and as long as people fulfill this criteria I don't see why the fact that they smoke should stop them fostering.

Which is worse?......leaving a child in an abusive/destructive/neglectful home or placing it with a loving, caring smoker?

There is an awful shortage of foster parents and it's not surprising with all these restrictions. :(

Re: No Fostering.
 

I was fostered and I could write a book about it but I'll wait a bit.

Re: No Fostering.
 

Well said Lilly, my thoughts exactly, karma sent x

Re: No Fostering.
 

Here we go again. Pick on the smokers who are already social outcasts. Bet they don't deny potential carers if they drink or smoke the 'wacky backy' or are dependant on tranquillisers/sleeping tablets. At the end of the day, any child needing foster care should be placed with the person who has the ability to help that child and give them the love and guidance they need. A lot of these children have probably come from homes where smoking/drugs/alcohol/neglect & abuse are everday occurences to them. I'm pretty sure the child doesn't really care if someone smokes cigarettes and I'm sure any potential carer would smoke outside or in a designated room/area that the child would have no access to.

Re: No Fostering.
 

Redbridge Council do not have jurisdiction over the rest of the UK. I fail to see what the second paragraph has to do with fostering :confused:

Re: No Fostering.
 

This is another topic you can ask me about face to face.

Re: No Fostering.
 

Well, well, well someone else has walked right into it – again and just couldn’t wait to do a bit of nit picking.

I don’t suppose that it occurred to you that the second paragraph was phrased as it was to see which nit picker would be first.

Nah! You were far too keen to make your infantile point.

Re: No Fostering.
 

And me,from both sides of the coin.

Re: No Fostering.
 

Wow, you're far too clever for me. :rolleyes:

Re: No Fostering.
 

OMG!!! another 'trick' you put in to catch people out, couldnt possibly be a mistake could it?

Re: No Fostering.
 

I too agree with Lilly's excellent post, and not because I am a smoker either.

The interesting comment on this afternoon's radio show .. sure you heard it Jambutty ... came from a Foster Parent who told us that if a child that came to them already smoked, they were not allowed to stop them, and even provide money to buy their cigarettes.

Re: No Fostering.
 

Yes I heard but as I said somewhere else it is always a good idea to leave something for someone else to bring up.

However seeing as you have brought the point up (much obliged for doing so) if the Foster Parent is a non-smoker that puts them in an awkward situation. Do the Foster Parents allow their home to be contaminated by tobacco fumes or do they refuse to take on the Foster Child?


I feel that Redbridge Council has opened a can of worms that could have serious repercussions.

Re: No Fostering.
 

That is stupid as well. How can you be classed as caring for a child if you allow them to smoke?

Who provides the money to but the cigarettes?

Re: No Fostering.
 

Other councils already have the policy in place, why should this one have serious repurcussions ?

Re: No Fostering.
 

Would presume all comes out of the expenses they are given to look after this child Neil .. she didn't say.

Could obviously, ask them not to smoke in the house and ban them to the outside, but were not allowed to take their cigarettes off them. Remember is an addiction and would be a danger of them stealing if they were not accommodated in some way.

Love the typing error by the way ... very appropriate ... :D

Re: No Fostering.
 

I prefer to use the term wage not expenses.

That was an accident.

Re: No Fostering.
 

You've said that before about something else but I can't remember what it was now. :(

I'll probably forget this one too by the time I see you.:rolleyes:

I'll have to start making a list.

Re: No Fostering.
 

Just a little of track, but don't some people make fostering a job of work caring for these kids, and if so would this not be breaking the law of smoking at work, or am I just being pedantic:rolleyes:

Re: No Fostering.
 

That is an interesting point. Yes they get paid for fostering, several hundred pounds a week if you have a teenager with problems. Is this classed as income? If so the earning of income could be classed as work.

Re: No Fostering.
 

Oh dear - it is after reading this thread that i have remembered why I dont post much on here anymore .

Re: No Fostering.
 

I don't know what you mean by that.....what have we said? :confused:

Re: No Fostering.
 

I'm just glad none of you had to live through it .

Re: No Fostering.
 

You mention that you were fostered.

Would it have made a difference to you if your foster parents were smokers or non smokers?

Re: No Fostering.
 

Oh nothing Lilly - Its just that every damn thread seems to turn into a petty - lets see who I can catch out this time, snidey comeback thread why cant people acccept everyone has an opinion fair enough it may not always be right IN SOMEBODY ELSES EYES but its life we all have opinions - so im not offended just fedup of the bickering thats all.

Re: No Fostering.
 

So you thought you'd add to it by being negative.:confused:

Everyone's opinion is as valid as the next person's on here.

I really don't see a problem, and certainly not one in this thread.

As for my own thoughts on the matter, given that there are documented health risks from passive smoking, I can quite see the logic of children not being placed in homes where the foster parents, or carers, are smokers.

Re: No Fostering.
 

i wasnt really talking about the issue the thread is about - more that there was bickering on the first page which neednt have been there, yet seems to be working its way into more and more threads- but yes I had added to the negativity i suppose - more fool me

Re: No Fostering.
 

I'm not having a go, I just can't see any evidence of bickering in this thread, just differences of opinions, which is quite normal, not just on here, but in everyday life too.

It would be a boring old world if we all thought exactly the same way about everything.

To rid any negativity from the air, have some positive karma instead.:)

Re: No Fostering.
 

lol gee thanks :D

Re: No Fostering.
 

No.That was the least of the problems.:mad:

Re: No Fostering.
 

Quite agree Rindi, can you imagine if we all came on here and just rubber stamped what everybody was say, doubt if we would close on 15000 members which is growing daily, I don't really think that there is that much animosity between members on here, just the odd people who can't see eye to eye on anything, but as you say that just monitors everyday life

Re: No Fostering.
 

I dont Keetah is talking about the subject of the thread, more the nit picking on page 1.

To be perfectly honest, I'm of the same feeling. For some people it doesnt matter what the post is about, more who the author is. I've had my ups and downs with JB myself, but just feel sometime that he may come up with valid points etc, but because of who he is, or what he's said in past posts, some people take it upon themselves to look at grammar, or typos or just disagree for disagreements sake. Just gets a bit boring and pathetic sometimes

Re: No Fostering.
 

well said

Re: No Fostering.
 

Hey Flashy.....what's happened to the tart? :confused::D

Re: No Fostering.
 

She's become a lady Lilly:D:rolleyes:

Re: No Fostering.
 

lol tarts are fattening so i thought i'd cut down a little ;)

Re: No Fostering.
 

Not in moderation, flashy, not in moderation:D

Re: No Fostering.
 

Love that. :D Have a drop of karma. :)

Re: No Fostering.
 

cheers for the karma Westender ;)

Re: No Fostering.
 

Are you sure it's the only reason, and not just one of the reasons?

A kid in Derbyshire has been taken into care and one of the reasons cited was he'd been allowed to become obese. The headline makes it sound like his weight was the deciding factor, but the other reasons haven't picked up on by the press presumably because they are the same as every other kid who ends up in care and therefore aren't very "newsworthy".

I'm not passing opinion on the suitability of smokers as fosters. I've never smoked, so my opinion is bound to be biased...

Re: No Fostering.
 

It was passed. Last night...

Re: No Fostering.
 

How ridiculous! Whats more annoying is that if you foster for the council, you receive under 100 pounds a week allowance for the child, for exterbal agencies its upto 400 a week. If the council are unable to place any child under its own foster carers, they have to use the agencies and pay the additional costs.

The smoking thing is just increasing the need for external agencies and increasing council spend, which would surely mean less money in the budget and so cutbacks somewhere else

Re: No Fostering.
 

Well as an ex-smoker I'm now very anti smoking, but I think that it a persons own preference to smoke or not. Some times I think that the smoking bad in pubs and clubs was very harsh, it may have been better with a designated smoking room, with powerful extractor fans to ensure the smoke didn't drift into other parts of the establishment. However, foster parents smoking, that's another question. Children who are in foster care have obviously had quite a lot of trauma in their young lives already, and having to live in a home that is constantly smoke fill, even if they don't smoke themselves (older ones that is) is a very great health risk and may even encourage the younger ones to start smoking themselves. Some years ago, I did a project with with the help of the LCC education department, regarding childhood asthma, and we had a team going round to schools talking to children about the causes of asthma, I was really shocked to see just how many young children actually smoked. That was twenty near on years ago, I wonder, given the anti-smoke campaign, just how much this has effected school kids today

Re: No Fostering.
 

People that smoke should not be allowed to have children in the first place.The next generation?:confused::confused:

Re: No Fostering.
 

That's a bit strong. :eek:

Where would it all end? :confused:

We could also extend that statement to include people with low intelligence, people with a Birmingham accent and people who eat too many flame grilled whoppers.

It would be better if certain people did not have children but there are no perfect parents, we all have our faults and enjoying a fag or being partial to a slice of Sara Lee gateau does not mean someone is unfit to foster.

Like I said at the beginning, I agree that people should not smoke in the home when children live there but what if these people go outside the home to smoke? Are they still barred from fostering? :confused:

Re: No Fostering.
 

I worked at a house in Darwen many years ago.The women had 8 foster children,The place was filthy- grease and fat everywhere I slid down the lobby the door handles were caked in grease the place stunk.
She had a fag in her gob all the time and she had had a light ale or two.The kids seemed happy though.Sad I thought but it has gone on for years.:mad::mad:

Re: No Fostering.
 

During the last twenty years or so the incidence of asthma in the young has dramatically INCREASED.

During the last twenty years or so there has been a dramatic INCREASE in the number of motor vehicles on the roads.

During the last ten of those twenty years there has been a major DECREASE in the number of people smoking.

Is there an EXPERT out there prepared to find a correlation between vehicle exhaust fumes and asthma?

Unlikely because most people drive cars or use buses and taxis so to reduce the vehicles on the roads would be too much of an inconvenience.

Re: No Fostering.
 

Think kids over recent years aren't exposed to the rough and tumble we used to be, not allowed to get mucky, exposed to the things we were when we were young, don't build up immunity to things like they used to. And of course, central heating must make a difference.

Re: No Fostering.
 

Have said it before and still believe that prams are much lower now so babies are breathing in more car fumes.

Re: No Fostering.
 

The products we clean our homes with are toxic too - all byproducts of the petrochemical industries that boomed in the 50s.
Soap powder was what it said - 'soap' - not detergent.
Carpets are made of chemical fibres
I feel that I may be boring you because I have said all this before
If you care- look here-
Guide to Less Toxic Products

Re: No Fostering.
 

It is a very good point that when I was growing up in the 40s and 50s homes and the environment were vastly different from today. We heated our homes with coal fires - often only one to heat the whole house - with open chimneys. Most floors were either bare, varnished wood or lino and if there was a carpet square or a rug it would, periodically, be hung over the washing line and beaten with a flat, wooden paddle to get the dust out. Washing days were steamy affairs with wet washing draped around the fire to dry on rainy days. If the steam became excessive, windows were opened and bedroom windows were often left open at night, whatever the weather. We walked to school and back and we, in the main, ate home-cooked meals with plenty of vegetables to make up for the small meat rations.

I only knew one boy who had asthma. Funnily enough, neither of his parents smoked though nearly every one else's parents did, including mine. My parents considered Blackburn Rd. very busy in those days but, compared to the traffic around now, it was like a country lane and, as Bernadette has pointed out, babies rode around in coach-built prams that were high off the ground - and above exhaust level.

It does give you food for thought. ;)

Re: No Fostering.
 

Do exhaust fumes, presumably warm, rise like warm air, or fall? :confused:

Re: No Fostering.
 

It's the particles in the fumes that do the damage
Diesel Exhaust Fumes Affect People With Asthma, Finds Study On London's Oxford Street

Re: No Fostering.
 

Yes maybe, but if we are talking about the height of prams making a difference, surely this comes into it? :confused:

Re: No Fostering.
 

Interesting that you should mention this. I was listening to the news the other nite about another incidence of higher than acceptable amounts of lead in paint used to color toys. I seem to remember my mom buying me lead soldiers to play with:eek: .... I'm not suggesting this as a positive thing, but regulating agencies do seem to be going overboard in trying to protect us from ourselves.:( Given the problems facing the world and both of our countries, I think that too much time and effort is being wasted on stupid crap.

In downtown Kingston in summer, tour buses sat idling in front of City Hall, with their AC units going full blast, only yards away from the patio of the Prince George, where patrons can sit and drink, but not smoke cigarettes. Go figure, eh.:confused:

By the way, hope you are enjoying it in Clayton:alright:

Re: No Fostering.
 

thanks Eric, sure am! :)

Re: No Fostering.
 

It's very hard to prove correlations when there are so many variables anyway, but so much has changed in the time between us being kids and today, that the variables that affected us as kids are different to those affecting the current generations.

Smoking can't possibly help. Other factors such as road pollution will probably "self heal" over time, but in the meantime preventing smoking among new foster parents and helping existing foster parents to quit will be seen as a positive step forward, however small.

Of course, the cynic in me wonders if this is a prelude to giving less money to foster parents, as the need to fund an addiction is removed... :cool:

Re: No Fostering.
 

If there were an abundance of people waiting to foster, then yes, thats when we can afford to be choosy.

All the time, we are being told that there are a shortage of homes, thousands of kids on an 'at risk' register and not enough money to adequately ensure no children in the UK are being mistreated.

Surely the main priority should be to have the children in loving and secure environment. Even to have regulations regarding smoking outside the house, not to put in place a total ban on smokers, that would otherwise be able to give the kids what they need

Re: No Fostering.
 

I'm not disputing what you say JB but he fact is that 20 years go asthma was not diagnosed like it is today, I know because I was being treated of asthma for 5 years before anybody told me that I had it, I always thought I had bronchitis. And nobody realised just how dangerous asthma can be, I spent years trying to educate people on the dangers of asthma, thankfully it is more readily recognised today and treated in the correct way