Posted By Tony Broad
I currently have a situation where a potentially long term placement (aged 10) would like to ride their potential foster carers (parents?) horses. The supervising care worker has informed the potential FC that the child cant ride their horse but doesn't appear to have given any reason.
my organisation currently pays for riding lessons for the child who is now a fairly competent rider. The organisation has also supplied the correct PPE which is now the property of the child and potential FC.
Now the child is horse mad, the potential parents are, it is assumed, competent "horsey" people and allow their own children to ride under normal parental supervision.
The question has been asked why this child cant ride its potential parents horse, does the organisation, as well as the potential parents! need to carry out full risk assessment, as llegislation requires, and how beaurocratic do we get bearing in mind that this activity would be a very important aspect of the childs bonding with its potential siblings and parents? How far do we have to encroach on what should be as normal a life as possible.
many thanks

Posted By Andy Brazier
You will never solve issues like this through risk assessment alone. The reason being that there will always be an appreciable risk. What you need to do is identify the benefits, and then demonstrate that these outweigh the risks. Benefits in this case would surely be life-long quality of life, and the risk would have to be very bad to make it not worth the risk.

Posted By John Watson
What a very sad situation and a damning indictment of our current jobsworth society. However standing bakc and looking dispassionately at this surely logic can defeat this issue. For example why is riding the horse, properly supervised etc etc, any less safe than said child playing with a trains set (Risk of electrocution), going to the beach (Risk of drowning, kidnap, molestation), playing football (Risk of broken bones) etc etc you could go on for ever. My point is that activities in life Carry risk, and if properly assessed are reduced, in most cases where children are involved to a negligable level. If the social worker is not going to allow horse riding then frankly they cannot allow anything at all. As a last aside surely this may count as discrimination or a breach of said child's human rights?

Food for thought.

Regards

John

Posted By Tony Broad
Hi Bob

Its a local authority.

Many thanks to all so far especially Judith Wood who has sent me some sensible information.

Posted By Robert K Lewis
Tony

This is a bit odd - The Spervising Care worker has allowed you to train the child to ride but now wants to stop the child riding once she/he is reasonably competent and enjoying it. Having said that the foster carers could well find the child moved on if they go against the CW.

I think you as an organisation ought to be putting some questions to the CW's principal officer. If the FCs raise issues it could create later difficulties. At the end of the day the care placement organisation has the whip hand, unless of course the courts feel differently but who wants to put a 10 year old through that. I imagine that there is a guardian ad litem somewhere so that could be another avenue to explore.

Bob

Posted By Lilian McCartney
I have a horse and some years ago I was a 'befriender' to a child 'in care' who wanted to ride. She came out and rode Sunshine under my supervision and I gave her lessons.
Sunshine is insured for 1 million for liability (as is common for horse insurance).

I expect that this was allowed because I also happended to be the LA Safety Adviser at the time and an assumption was made that I had made it as 'safe' as it could be, particualrly as there is no such thing as a 100% safe horse due to outside influences (noises, birds, wind in trees etc).

If safety is the reason this can be dealt with appropriately.

It's also good for children to know how to look after animals and this child will get that additonal relationship with the horse which can be missing from riding schools as they have a lot of clients.

The child will become very attached to the horse which if/when the child moves on is an additional emotion but is similar to pet dogs and cats (though with horses I think there seems to be more attachment - I'm not sure why).

I think there are more pluses than minuses here (perhaps as a horse owner I'm biased). The LA needs to become more peron centred on the childs needs and wants.

Lilian

Posted By Bob Thompson CMIOSH
not that easy rob the fact of the matter is they are foster parents not adoptive parents. the authority still retains parental oversight the carers are merley assisting them with this. There is a significant amount of control and restrictions imposed on what foster carers can and cant do.

Bob

Posted By Robert K Lewis
Alan

Whichever way it is the Care Worker ought to be more clear concerning the reasoning behind a decision of this nature.

Generally parents in this situation would have objected to horse riding per se rather than simply the FCs horses. Certainly also insurance could be an issue but even this is soluble because most owners already carry significant PL insurance for their horse.

But I do admit that any foster carer is in an awkward position and really is not in a position to question any decision as others have also commented. I have seen good foster parents removed from lists of approved carers for such audacity.

Bob

Posted By David c Wilson
I believe red tape is yet again denying a child a lifelong passion and HEALTHY interest which can only increase a childs activity & confidence levels. In my opinion you should do a basic RA with the control measures x risk and not deny the child any longer.
Sorry if this sounds abit of a ramble, it just annoys me that this decision could spoil a wonderful opportunity. Would they prefer the child to hang around on street corners with nothing to do?

Posted By David c Wilson
Well said Merv!

More eloquent than my ramble, but the child's happiness is paramount. Walking to school is more dangerous in my book!

I am a parent & horse rider, so i am talking as a parent rather than a H&S killjoy.

Posted By Jeepster
Perception of risk is key.

Would you stop a child riding in a car?

but if we described driving on an A class road as sat in a tin box at 60mph with other tin boxes passing less than 2 metres away with a closing speed of 120 mph with no physical separation, measure of competence, insurance or even road worthiness of the oncoming car and driver. whom we have never met before or ever likely to ever again. Would this be responsible to permit this to happen once let alone 1000s of times a day?

What is routine and competent to one, can look incredibly dangerous to another.

Life is for enjoying

Posted By anon1234
We are all looking at something without the full facts - read the first paragraph 'I currently have a situation where a potentially long term placement (aged 10) would like to ride their potential foster carers (parents?) horses. The supervising care worker has informed the potential FC that the child cant ride their horse but doesn't appear to have given any reason.'

The supervising care worker has made the decision and has not given a reason - find out what the reason is and then challenge or accept it based on what is said.