ListenSCOTLAND
Children raised by family carers are facing 'social apartheid', warn Glasgow support group
CHILDREN who have been taken from their parents and cared for by relatives rather than foster carers face being raised in poverty.
MSPs were told by Tommy McFall, of Glasgow's New Fossils Grandparent Support Group, that the kids were victims of "social apartheid".
The Scottish Parliament's education committee heard of youngsters being bitten and burned with cigarettes by their parents, and a growing number of children born to substance abusers.
But they face a life of poverty if taken in by grandparents or other relatives because many "kinship carers" do not receive the same financial support as foster carers.
Tommy, who has looked after his granddaughter with his wife for 11 years, told how a social worker arrived at the door of his group's chairwoman with her three grandchildren on a Saturday night and said: "Take them or they go into care."
He added: "Six weeks later, nobody had contacted her. She and the three children were lying in the one bed in pitch darkness on a Saturday night because they couldn't afford a power card.
"She ended up having to go to St Vincent de Paul for charity. This is not an isolated incident." Tommy claimed all levels of government needed to stop making excuses and give equality to kinship carers.
He said: "The discrimination against the children in kinship care is breathtaking. It is tantamount and comparable to apartheid."
Tommy claimed Parliament agreed in 2007 to pay the same allowances to children in kinship care and foster care.
He said: "That was the deal, but the deal has never materialised. Rather than ending the postcode lottery, rather than stabilising the payments and allowances, it has entrenched the discrimination."
The Scottish Government claimed they had fulfilled a four-year-old commitment to create parity by providing significant financial resources for local authorities.
But the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the Association of Directors of Social Work blamed budget cuts, a sharp rise in claimants and difficulties with the UK benefits system.
Tristan Stewart-Robertson
19 January 2012
