With her two children nearly grown up, Sharon Wooller was ready to follow her dream career. She was in her early forties, had just completed an access to nursing qualification and was about to start a university midwifery course.
But the NHS manager and trainer from Blackwood, Caerphilly, had to give it all up when her daughter had a baby aged 17. When the teenager and her young partner were unable to care for their son Sharon stepped in leaving her job and career dreams behind.
“I was about to fulfil my dream and start a university course to retrain as a midwife. My life turned on its head when social services asked me to take care of my 10-month-old grandson, otherwise he would go into the care system - of course, your instinct is to care for your own flesh and blood,” she said.
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Sharon, now 51, was there when grandson Luke was born and moved in with her daughter for the first few weeks of his life, but it soon became clear that his young parents could not look after him. Eventually Sharon had to give up her NHS job at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff to look after him full time.
She loves Luke “to bits”, but says lack of support for people caring for relatives' children leaves families suffering. Kinship carers, as they are known, do not get the same financial, respite or practical support that non-related foster carers do and Sharon and her husband Matt don’t get a penny.
Sharon, who sees her daughter intermittently, has legal guardianship of grandson Luke but Matt’s income as an IT worker means they aren’t entitled to financial help or practical support, despite the little boy’s health problems. Luke has epilepsy and trauma he suffered in babyhood left him with behavioural and development problems.
When Sharon and Matt took care of him, they were shocked to be given no practical advice or financial help. She said they felt "dumped" by social services because of how the system works.
“We didn’t receive any legal, practical advice, or financial support and didn’t have a clue about what to do, or how to do it. When we finally received an allowance, it was means tested and amounted to just £50 a month to clothe, feed and look after our grandson and it ended after two years,” she said.
“Without any proper financial support, we’ve had to spend all our savings. Now the cost of living crisis is seeing our bills double and it’s scary to think how we’re going to manage.”
Sharon said the whole process has left her bruised. She had to undergo assessments before gaining guardianship of her grandson and was reviewed by a local authority panel before being allowed to keep him.
“After 18 months the local authority said I would have to become a special guardian otherwise they would place my grandson in the care system. Eventually we got our special guardianship order when our grandson was two and a half. That’s when social services seemed to just dump us and run and we were left on our own without any support.”
Sharon worked during the day marking exam papers when Luke was asleep, or at night after he’d gone to bed to try and bring some money in. Now he’s 10 she is unable to work full time because of his behavioural needs.
“Without any proper financial support we’ve had to spend all our savings, as we had nothing when my grandson came to us. Friends turned up with bags of clothes and a wardrobe.
“The lack of respite support and therapeutic support to deal with his challenging behaviours became so bad that we reached crisis point recently and didn’t know if we could carry on. It pushed our marriage to breaking point and we had to tell the local authority that they had to help us as a family. He is the one that’s suffering and it’s heart-breaking to reach the end of your tether. The lack of support for kinship carers is terrible.”
Sharon is part of a campaign by the charity Kinship lobbying for those looking after relative’s children to get the same support as foster carers.
“We’re just left to get on with it and muddle through. We should receive the same support as foster carers, that’s all we’re asking for. We don’t become kinship carers for the money, or as a career choice. We do it because we love our children but we’re ignored and abandoned because we’re family.”
Luke’s primary school has helped him, but Sharon is worried he won’t cope in mainstream secondary school next September. He loves learning but gets anxious at school and where he’ll go next is another worry. The schoolboy, who loves the outdoors, swimming and building with Minecraft and Lego is “full of love”, said his grandmother. But she is scared she can’t give him what he needs.
Sometimes she worries Luke would have been better off fostered because that would bring more funding and support his way. “If we had fostered him he could have had therapies and sometimes you think you disadvantaged him by taking him in. The cost of living is affecting everybody and we are not the worst off, I know of others who have it even harder.”
Sharon was in Parliament earlier this week as part of a lobby by the charity Kinship. Kinship is launching its new national campaign - #ValueOurLove - and is calls on the UK Government to give kinship carers the same support as foster and adoptive families.
A spokesperson for the charity said: "Although lots of children's social care policy is devolved, all MPs across both England and Wales can help us raise awareness and understanding of kinship care by supporting the campaign. We're excited to develop our Wales-specific campaign next year to target decision makers in the Senedd and Welsh Government."
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