I’m a new foster carer. To help children, we need basic rights

A few months ago, we welcomed into our home at a few hours’ notice two children under the age of five who had been removed from their family under an interim care order. In our mid-50s and with our four children largely grown, we decided to become foster carers and had undergone six months of exhaustive checks and training.

There is currently a need for around 9,000 foster places, but not enough carers to provide homes for vulnerable children at risk. Improving the status of foster carers is central to addressing this shortage. There’s no contract between foster carers and a local authority: instead, an agreement is signed, which establishes a fee and expenses (my partner and I get just over £300 a week).

Carers have no employment rights and do not enjoy even worker status under EU law. There is no legally mandated sickness or holiday pay, or entitlement to the minimum wage. My partner and I are not poor, and so money does not matter too much. But for those who rely on placements for income, such guarantees are vital.

Carers are carefully monitored, have to keep meticulous records and enjoy little natural or spontaneous authority in catering for a child’s needs. Parental authority, at least initially, remains with the natural parents and the local authority. Sleepovers, haircuts, non-emergency medical treatment and schooling have to be cleared with social workers. Caring for children who have experienced terrible things is not easy: it involves coping with tears and tantrums, confusion, disordered behaviour, violence and the ever-present possibility of a false allegation being made. Even relatively “easy” placements import a weight of tragedy into the home that leaves little room for routine and unrelated stresses: you are on 24-hour watch. In too many cases, carers can still be treated as junior employees rather than as partners and the volunteers they currently are.

No one gets rich through fostering. The task is so all-consuming and the remuneration so limited that altruism has to be the primary motivation. There is thus little danger of a prospective carer seeing fostering as a “nice little earner”. One woman I know who lives alone and who once found herself fleeing her home when set upon by one of her charges has no other income. If she fails to secure placements, or gets ill, or suffers bereavement or family disaster, she is on her own – and her expertise, and above all the love and security she provides, is lost.

The recent media outrage surrounding a Christian child being placed with a Muslim foster family in Tower Hamlets shows how under-appreciated the role can be. The sacrifice and service of this particular foster family, who opened their home to a desperate child, was reduced to a medieval discussion about cultural and religious compatibility. How awful for them and the child, and how off-putting for prospective carers.

We work directly with the local authority rather than through an independent fostering agency. Many agencies are run for profit and their placements tend to be more expensive. Might not the inflated amounts paid to agencies be better spent in a more efficient and reformed in-house operation?

Above all, some sort of national definition of the rights and remuneration due to foster carers needs to be established. A universal pay scale should be applied, and foster carers should be given a legally recognised status. There are already attempts in the courts to secure employment rights guaranteeing a measure of financial and legal security.

We went into fostering because we felt it was our duty. Given our advantages and life stage, it would have been wrong to walk away once we knew the facts. For those with good hearts and lesser means, and for those who rely on fostering as a key source of income, some protection against instant and sometimes unexplained dismissal, a guarantee of steady income and mandatory sickness benefits and legal protection is the least that should be provided.

• Martin Newland was editor of the Daily Telegraph between 2003 and 2005