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Report calls for reform of special guardianships...

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Report calls for reform of special guardianships...

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A recent report calls for significant changes to Special Guardianship Orders (SGOs), which includes ensuring family members who might become carers have direct experience of looking after the child before the court order is made.

The review was commissioned by the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory in response to the Court of Appeal's call for authoritative, evidence-based guidance for the use of SGOs. It was led by Dr John Simmonds from CoramBAAF and Professor Judith Harwin from Lancaster University.

The review shows that SGOs provide children with a safe, permanent home with family members when the court decides they cannot live with their birth parents. But local authorities and the courts face major challenges in providing special guardians with adequate preparation and support for the long-term consequences of this life-changing responsibility, leading to avoidable and significant stress that is potentially damaging to children's futures.

The review calls for significant changes including:

Increase focus on working with family members who might become the child's special guardian before care proceedings commence.

A statutory minimum amount of preparation and training for prospective special guardians.

Ensuring that prospective special guardians have direct experience of caring for the child before making a Special Guardianship Order, evidenced by a thorough assessment of suitability.

Ensure that support services are available locally and align with entitlements for adopters and foster carers such as parental leave, housing priority and financial support.

Address the glaring gap in research on children and young people's views and experiences of special guardianship. Undertake research to address the challenge of how best to ensure safe and positive contact with birth parents and the wider family.

Article continues below...

Special guardians are usually family members and have parental responsibility for the child in their care. However, unlike adoption, the basic legal link between the child and their birth parents is preserved. The use of SGOs has been increasing - between 2010/11 and 2016/17, more than 21,000 children had an SGO made at the end of their care proceedings.

The review examined the research evidence on special guardianship, informed by the views of special guardians themselves, and sought the views of lawyers, social workers and Cafcass Guardians. It found that special guardianship is a stable option for children, the majority of whom fare well in relation to their safety, well-being and developmental progress. However, use of SGOs is not aligned with best practice in other forms of placement such as adoption and foster care, even though children have experienced similar levels of abuse and neglect and the demands placed on special guardians are as great as for other carers.

Lisa Harker, Director of the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory said: 'Relatives are often the first to be considered when finding a loving, stable home for children who are unable to live with their birth parents but too often they are asked to care for children with significant emotional and behavioural difficulties, without sufficient support in place to help them to do so. This evidence review points to some serious gaps in assessment, preparation and support which need to be addressed.'

Dr John Simmonds, Director of Policy, Research and Development at CoramBAAF said: 'Our research review has explored the current evidence, and this reinforces the message that Special guardianship is an important positive option. But there are a number of priority issues that need urgent reform to ensure that these life-changing plans are child and carer centred. The evidence indicates that currently they are not.'

Professor Judith Harwin said: 'Special guardianship is an immensely important route out of the care system. This review confirms what we have known for too long. We expect too much of special guardians and need to ensure their entitlements to preparation, advice and support match those available to foster carers and adopters. The practice of making a SGO before the child has lived with the carer is hard to justify and should stop.'

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Report calls for reform to special guardianship to protect and support children and carers

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A recent report calls for significant changes to Special Guardianship Orders (SGOs), which includes ensuring family members who might become carers have direct experience of looking after the child before the court order is made. The review was commissioned by the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory in response to the Court of Appeal's call for authoritative, evidence-based guidance for the use of SGOs.

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Special guardians must receive a minimum level of training...

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Special guardians must receive a minimum level of training...

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Prospective special guardians should benefit from a statutory minimum standard of preparation and training before orders are made, a new study has argued.

The Nuffield Foundation report, based on a research review and interviews with social workers, Cafcass guardians and family lawyers, found special guardianship orders (SGOs) - an increasingly common permanence option that often places children with a relative - are often made following "almost non-existent" groundwork with the new carer.

Unlike with prospective adopters and foster carers, there is no regulatory requirement on councils to ensure training and prepration for a special guardian.

The study, by Lancaster University professor Judith Harwin and John Simmonds, director of policy, research and development at CoramBAAF, also said that guardians should have direct experience of caring for the child before the order is made.

Provision must also be made for there to be a legal orders that allow time for children and prospective special guardians to live together, before a full SGO is made, the study said.

Rushed assessments

Under an SGO, the special guardian assumes all day-to-day parenting responsibilities for a child or young person but the legal link they have with their birth parents remains unbroken, unlike with adoption.

Get up to speed with SGO law

At this year's Community Care Live, on 15-16 October, barrister William Dean will be bringing practitioners up to speed with the latest legal developments around SGOs, including what the Re P-S judgment means for your practice.

To ensure you don't miss out on this session, register for the event - giving you access to over 30 free seminars - and sign up for the SGO session. An early bird discount for this session is available until 30 August.

When a person applies to become a special guardian through private law system, the child must have lived with the prospective special guardian for at least a year. But this does not apply in the circumstances in which SGOs are most frequently made - when family members nominate themselves to look after a child during care proceedings, which are meant to conclude within 26 weeks.

A prominent 2018 Court of Appeal judgment, 'Re P-S', which formed the context for the new study, found that a judge was wrong to issue care orders rather than SGOs relating to two children who had not yet lived with their paternal grandparents.

Meanwhile, research published earlier this year by Harwin and other Lancaster academics found the 26-week deadline was resulting in rushed special guardianship assessments lacking in rigour, a point echoed in the latest study.

'Stress and confusion'

Focus groups carried out as part of the new study raised a series of concerns, from end to end of the special guardianship process, including:

Viability assessments being carried out by social workers with little experience of family placement issues due to resources being stretched.

A lack of consideration around prospective special guardians' existing relationship, experience and knowledge of the child and the consequences of this.

A failure to take into account children's wishes, feelings and needs.

Prospective special guardians lacking legal or other forms of support in court, causing "stress and confusion" for many.

Practical difficulties around making evidence-informed support plans when children have not lived with prospective carers before an SGO is made.

Lack of support for special guardians with housing and finance compared with foster carers or adoptive parents.

The use of family group conferences (FGCs) was identified as a positive step towards identifying special guardians, the study report noted. But these also required adequate resourcing, including around training, it added.

Harwin, who described special guardianship as "an immensely important route out of the care system, said the review confirmed "what has been known too long", namely that too much is expected of special guardians.

"[We] need to ensure their entitlements to preparation, advice and support match those available to foster carers and adopters," she said. "The practice of making an SGO before the child has lived with the carer is hard to justify and should stop."

'Crying out for support'

Responding to the report, Cathy Ashley, the chief executive of the Family Rights Group (FRG) charity, which works with relatives of children involved with the care system, said it "rightly focuses on concerns about rushed, inadequate assessments, lack of informed decision-making by potential carers and poor support".

"We endorse the report's conclusions about the benefits that family group conferences can provide in supporting wider family members to come forward at the earliest opportunity to care for children unable to live at home," Ashley said. "We also concur about the need for robust support plans."

An FRG survey of special guardians reported that three quarters felt that they did not have sufficient specialist legal advice to make an informed decision when they took on children, Ashley pointed out.

"It's imperative the government invests in early, independent legal advice so potential kinship carers understand their legal options including the implications for support for the child," she said. "The report mentions requiring special guardians to complete minimum preparation and training [and] our experience is that they are often crying out to be offered such support, but it is often not on offer or unavailable in the local authority or court's timescale."

New guidance due

The study is designed to feed into the current review of SGOs by the Family Justice Council, which is due to result in authoritative guidance to assist courts in making SGOs and respond to the Court of Appeal judgment in Re P-S.

In May, the council published interim guidance, which sets out circumstances in which the 26-week deadline could be extended when prospective special guardians are identified during proceedings.

The full guidance is expected later this year.

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Special guardians must receive minimum level of training and preparation, study argues

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Prospective special guardians should benefit from a statutory minimum standard of preparation and training before orders are made, a new study has argued. The Nuffield Foundation report, based on a research review and interviews with social workers, Cafcass guardians and family lawyers, found special guardianship orders (SGOs) - an increasingly common permanence option that often places [...]

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A special guardianship's rights and responsibilities...

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A special guardianship's rights and responsibilities...

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You can apply to be a child’s special guardian when they cannot live with their birth parents and adoption is not right for them.

You’ll be responsible for looking after the child until they’re 18 (unless the court takes your responsibility away earlier).

You’ll make all day to day decisions about the child, for example schooling and medical treatment. You do not have to discuss these decisions with the birth parents.

You’ll need to get the consent of everyone who has parental responsibility for the child before you make some important decisions, for example:

changing the child’s surname

putting the child up for adoption

taking the child abroad for more than 3 months

the child having surgery for reasons other than improving health, such as circumcision, sterilisation or cosmetic surgery

If you cannot get consent, you can ask the court to decide. Use the form ‘Make an application in existing court proceedings related to children’ (form C2).

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Special guardianship a review of the evidence...

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Special guardianship a review of the evidence...