Family Rights Group | Kinship carers’ Forum

Hi
My husband and I have just passed our viability assessments for Special Guardianship order for our friends baby.
In the past (2017) and not related to this child, we have gone through the adoption process and been stopped because my BMI was/is too high.
I am just concerned this might happen again with these assessments, does anyone know if BMI comes into it? I am a fit and healthy person generally.
The child is currently placed with grandparents for 6 months so is not at risk.

Hello and welcome here.

My understanding is that the assessments for foster, adoption and special guardianship are all similar if not the same. The assessing social worker needs to consider any factors that may affect the security of the placement long term. In other words they don't want to place a child where they may have to move again because of:
- The home and it's suitability for the perceived need of the child.
- The culture and cultural background of the child and the proposed carer(s), and acceptance if need be by the carers for the background of the child.
- The needs of the child, including as a result of any known disability or illness.
- The age, mental and physical wellbeing of the proposed carer(s).
- The support the special guardian has on hand to help with caring for the child.

Given this was an issue for you several years ago, I suspect that you will be asked if you are able to demonstrate any improvement in your health in the interim. For instance, if you have agreed a strategy with your GP to get your BMI down. It may not be too late to consider such action, provided you can engage quickly. I struggle to imagine that just having a high BMI would be cause to negatively assess you, but it's really down to the person doing the assessment and what they think is the risk to the child of a disrupted placement given that it's a baby with almost 18 years of childhood to look forward to.

A sample of the sort of things considered can be found at https://proceduresonline.com/trixcms2/m ... plate.docx. Note that different authorities have differing templates.

@Suzie, the FRG advisor will hopefully be able to add more information to assist you when next on-line.

I wish you luck .... Robin

Bootyfull wrote: Thu Jan 25, 2024 10:51 pm Hi
My husband and I have just passed our viability assessments for Special Guardianship order for our friends baby.
In the past (2017) and not related to this child, we have gone through the adoption process and been stopped because my BMI was/is too high.
I am just concerned this might happen again with these assessments, does anyone know if BMI comes into it? I am a fit and healthy person generally.
The child is currently placed with grandparents for 6 months so is not at risk.

Dear Bootyfull

Welcome to the kinship carers forum and thank you for your post.

My name is Suzie, online adviser at Family Rights Group. I see from your post that you have had a positive viability assessment and children’s services will now carry out an in-depth special guardianship assessment which, if positive will recommend that a special guardianship order should be made in your favour.

As another poster has said in response to your post the assessments are very similar for foster care, adoption, and special guardianship. These assessments must be very detailed and thorough since they are for long term care of the child concerned.

The assessment will investigate the history of yourself and your husband. You have been through the process before and failed due to your high BMI. As your medical history will also be considered as part of the assessment to ensure that your health is good enough to care for a young to their majority it may well be a concern. Your GP will be asked to report on your health and how any condition is being managed.

It may put your mind at ease if you were to ask the social worker or the assessor how they view a high BMI. Generally, it is believed that a high BMI could result in health issues so you can discuss with your GP as well. I do not have the expertise to tell you how your BMI will affect you and a lot will depend on the overall assessment.

I have included a link to information about special guardianship orders which includes information about the assessment for a special guardianship order.

I hope this is helpful, but you may wish to speak to one of our experienced advisers and, if so, do telephone our advice line on 0808 801 0366. The advice line is open from 9.30am to3.00pm Monday to Friday (excluding Bank Holidays)

Best wishes

Suzie