Published: Wednesday, 3rd June, 2009 1:09pm

Aunt"s heartache in bid to care for abandoned niece

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Sam Ovens: Sympathy for family.

A 12-YEAR-OLD girl could end up being taken into care because council regulations prevent her aunt from becoming her kinship carer.

The young girl, who has already gone through the trauma of seeing both her parents removed from her life, was being cared for by her older sister but she was unable to look after her.

But when their aunt in Tullibody offered to look after her niece, she was told she wasn"t entitled to receive a kinship carer"s payment.

Now the girl faces being taken away from her family and placed with foster parents because her aunt simply can"t afford to keep her.

Yet the cost of placing her with foster parents could run into hundreds of pounds.

The girl"s aunt told the Advertiser, 'My niece turned up at my door with nowhere else to go and I took her in. Now I"m being told because it was voluntary I"m not entitled to be her kinship carer – did they expect me just to send her away?

'If she had been dumped at the council offices at Greenfield and the council had then contacted a family to take her in I would be entitled to the money a kinship carer can claim, but because I wouldn"t leave her with no one I"ve no entitlement.

'I"m very disappointed and if this is the help you get no wonder families break up.'

At present, the woman, who has children of her own, is unemployed and on incapacity benefit and receives a weekly payment of around £50 in child tax benefit for looking after her niece.

Clackmannanshire Council agreed in December to pay kinship carers between £119 and £198 per week.

The girl is not originally from the area and arrived in Tullibody with hardly any possessions.

Her aunt said, 'Social work say her belongings are her identification but she had to leave them at her home. I can"t afford to go down and get them or even afford to buy her new clothes.'

After a traumatic upbringing, the child has had difficulty settling in and violent outbursts have led to her destroying part of the kitchen and bathroom of her aunt"s house, in addition to damaging other rooms.

Her aunt continued, 'The council won"t help me replace anything that has been damaged. It reached the point where I couldn"t afford to keep her and they were quite prepared to put her into care and pay for that but they won"t pay me an extra £70 a week.'

In a council meeting last year it was revealed that it can cost between £800 and £1300 per week to place a child into foster care if, due to a lack of places in the county, the council needed to use a foster agency to find a place outwith Clackmannanshire.

The girl"s aunt said, 'This is affecting her so badly, she has been traumatised so much but they would still let her go into care whatever the cost.

'They would put the bairn in care for £70 a week but she has been through far too much for me to let that happen – it is the last thing she needs.'

The girl has been provided with access to the 'Includem" service for children rejected by their family and community. The service provides 24-hour telephone support to young people.

The aunt said, 'The child is hard to handle but social work have said she is beginning to settle and improve. She has no toys or clothes but the only time the council will do something is when she is bad. If she is out of control they offer to take her out. To me that"s rewarding her for being bad.

'At the moment it seems like one door closes and then so does another one. I"m sick of how we have been treated.'

A spokesperson for Clackmannanshire Council said they did not comment on individual cases to promote confidence in service users that their information will be held confidentially.

However, Councillor Sam Ovens said, 'The council has every sympathy for kinship carers in the county and backs their efforts to provide care for relatives involved.

'The council introduced Kinship Care allowances in 2007. The Kinship Care policy states that children living with kinship carers where Child Care Services have not been instrumental in placing them there are not eligible for this scheme.

'This element of the policy was based on national guidelines while taking into account the needs and capacity of Child Care Services.

'Where, legally, children concerned are the responsibility of other councils in Scotland or beyond, our team will maintain contact with those authorities to promote the care of children living in our area.'