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Placement of a Child with Family or Friends 1

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When you are informed of Family members following court you MUST forward the required details the Family Placement team inbox with the initial care plan & SWET.

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This section must be completed fully by the Child’s allocated Worker with particular emphasis on the current plan for the child and the proposed (or current) care arrangements.

In all cases, parental views need to be recorded as do the views of the child/ young person dependent upon age and understanding.

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Before making a decision to place a child in care with a relative, friend or connected person, the local authority must:

assess the person’s suitability to care for the child, the suitability of other persons aged 18 and over who are members of the household (making arrangement for DBS checks to be undertaken, as necessary), and the suitability of the accommodation

ascertain and give due consideration to the wishes and feelings of the child

review the child’s case

The home must be visited by the social worker as part of the assessment process. This is to ensure that the home and space available are suitable for that particular child, and to identify any additional resources which may be needed to meet the child’s needs (for example, equipment for a baby or very young child, or specialist equipment for a disabled child). The home visit will also provide an opportunity to identify more clearly the composition of the household and the nature and quality of the relationships between the residents, as well as their views about the proposed arrangements. If there are other children living in the household, the social worker will need to ascertain their views on the proposed placement and its possible impact upon them, and also consider whether anything in their history and current lifestyle is likely to have an impact upon the placement.

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A Connected Persons Assessment considers the likelihood of prospective carer(s) being able to meet the identified physical and emotional needs of the child /young person currently and throughout their childhoods; whether they will be provided with stability and boundaries and whether they will be safe.  Statutory checks, including DBS and references are sought and discussions with the prospective carer(s) cover the following broad areas:

·       Their level of motivation for providing permanent care for the child / young person

·       Their current family relationships and functioning

·       Their experience of parenting children

·       The difficulties that led to the family breakdown and their insight into this

·       Where the child / young person is already placed, how well the carer(s) are coping currently

·       Any support that may be required to assist the placement

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It is acknowledged that placements with a connected person under Regulation 26 often occur in an emergency. However, the process for considering emergency/unplanned placements must be followed.
If the immediate placement of a child is necessary, the child may be placed with a person who is not a foster carer provided that:
• the person is a relative, friend or other connected person of the child
• the local authority is satisfied that this is the most suitable way of performing its duty
• the carer makes a written agreement with Social Services to carry out specific duties.

Prior to the placement of a child with a relative or friend under Regulation 26, specific checks must be completed as follows:
• Initial Police checks
• Local Authority checks
• Interviewing the prospective carers about their ability to suitably care for and protect the child
• Obtaining information about other persons in the household
• Inspecting the accommodation and proposed sleeping arrangements for the child.

This information must be gathered by the child’s social worker and must be recorded within the Connected Persons Part 1. The Team Manager will have a quality assurance role before this is passed to the Placement Unit for the Service Manager to agree.

On receipt of Service Manager approval, the Placement Unit will amend the legal status of the child to ‘child looked after’ and arrange financial support for the carers.

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Social worker will complete the form.  Team Manager to Approve and Placement Unit to Close once Service Manager information has been inserted

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Located on WCCIS  - Caer - CS - CPA - Section 1

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Placements with a temporarily approved foster carer

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Placements with a temporarily approved foster carer

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Where a child has been placed with a temporarily approved foster carer (usually a relative, friend or other connected person) the child must be visited at least weekly until the time of the first review. Subsequently, visits must take place at intervals of not more than four weeks until either the carer is approved as a local authority foster carer or the final hearing has been completed in the care proceedings.

These frequencies reflect the potentially greater vulnerability of a child who has been placed with a carer before the assessment of that person’s suitability to care for the child has been completed, or where the child continues to live with a parent in circumstances where the local authority has concerns about a possible continuing risk of the child suffering significant harm.

These visits will allow the social worker to assess how the relationship between the child and parent or carer is developing and identify at an early stage where there may be concerns about a child’s wellbeing.

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The content and outcome of each visit to a looked after child must be carefully recorded within the individual case record in a way which enables a continuing assessment of the progress of the child in the placement to be made, even where there is a change of social worker. The record should set out the main issues that were raised during the visit, any issues of concern and how these will be addressed, and an overall conclusion. Information from the visit should be shared appropriately with the child’s parents and carers, and others who may need to know. The social worker must discuss with the child, subject to their age and understanding, what information should be shared with whom and why.

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Completion of Viability or Full Assessment

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Completion of Viability or Full Assessment

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If at any stage in the process the outcome of the the assessment is negative and the child/ren remain with the carer requested by court then the visit frequency from the Fostering team will be no later than 3 weekly intervals, until the child/ren are moved to an alternative arrangement.

If positive and and all the checks have been returned then preparation for foster panel will be required.  Carers will then be able to claim full National Minimum Allowance and receive support from the review and support team.   Where the checks remain outstanding fostering business support will continue to update.
The assessment will also be filed with clear information on the outstanding checks.

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On the granting of the order the children arrangements will be made for the transfer of the case to Family & Friends team and the carers will be presented back to foster panel to be terminated as relative carers.

Placement unit will process the information and ensure that notification is sent to finance to commence SGO allowances.

NB:  SGO carers will be required to claim benefits if they are entitled to do so, there can be delays in this process as it is reliant on the carers receiving a copy of the order to do so, therefore no payments will change without confirmation these are in place up to 12 weeks post order being granted.

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Form to be retrieved from WCCIS.  Where there is a Regulation 26 placement part 1 this will be excluded from this form for the Fostering team to undertake the assessment.

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The timescales for completion of assessment can be anything between 14 - 16 weeks from Court request. Therefore the information on family members is required within 24 hours of notification. It should be noted that within 2 weeks of the notification the locality team/Legal should be made aware if the connected person is negative or proceeding to full assessment.