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The Key Objectives for Kinship Care within GIRFEC in Kinship and Foster Care
The Principles of this Interim Guidance
The Reference Group shares Government in Scotland's belief that the majority of children are best brought up by their parents, with appropriate support in place if necessary. However, it is important to acknowledge that this will simply not be possible for some children and their families and that in many such cases, the local authority will need to use its statutory responsibilities to intervene to ensure the safety and well-being of such children.
All children need to be brought up in a loving and stable home where their needs for care, love, and support can be met. (The GIRFEC principles and vision of children being Safe, Nurtured, Healthy, Achieving, Active, Respected, Responsible and Included are at the centre of this interim guidance)
In the process of considering whether a child needs to become Looked After, for however short or long a period, the first option for consideration should be the ability and capacity of the wider family to provide a child with a safe and permanent home.
In such cases, a local authority will need to introduce an assessment and approval process for potential kinship carers for Looked After children. The starting-point and foundation for this process will be the child's plan. The work with the kinship carers will be to explore with them their ability and capacity to meet the needs of the child and what kind of supports they will require to do that. This is a fundamentally different approach to the assessment of foster carers.
The assessment process should help kinship carers to feel more involved and consulted and able to identify the kinds of supports they believe they need to look after the child safely and in a way that promotes the child's best interests.
In addition, the wider family should be included in this process through Family Meetings so that the child has that community of support round them and different members of the family can contribute to the support and care of the child and, of course, the carer.
The forthcoming Early Years Framework strategy will aim to give all families support at the earliest point in their child's life in the very complex task of parenting young children and this is welcomed by the Reference Group. Nevertheless, universal services are fundamental to providing this support and should be available to kinship carers caring for children. Specialist services are, and should be, in place to meet specific needs of the child, their carer and wider family network.
It must be acknowledged that there will be some kinship carers who, after discussion and assessment, cannot be recommended as carers for the child. The local authority has to take seriously its responsibilities for the safety of any Looked After child and this may mean children being moved from the care of kinship carers.
Context
At the time of publication (September 2008), we are in a transitional period for much of kinship care and foster care. The reference group believes that while the assessment and approval process proposed will remain broadly similar, there are significant forthcoming developments. It is therefore sensible to build in a review period so that practitioners and social work managers have the opportunity to contribute their knowledge and experience of providing support to kinship carers of Looked After children.
These developments will include:
- The forthcoming consultation on the revised Looked After Children Regulations. Among other things, these will set out an assessment and approval route that will differentiate kinship carer assessments from those of approved foster carers, although both these types of assessment will have significant features in common.
- Further detail on the approach to be taken where a permanence order is to be sought.
- The implementation by local authorities of the commitment within the Concordat to pay a kinship care allowance to approved kinship carers of Looked After children
- The introduction of the specialist kinship care service by Citizens Advice Scotland.
- Ongoing discussion with UK Ministers on improvements to the UK benefits system.
Building in a review process to consider any modifications to this guidance is a sensible way forward and I am grateful to members of the Reference Group and to the ADSW sub-committee on fostering and adoption services for agreeing to work with Government in Scotland on this review from April 2009.
This interim guidance prepared by the Task Group on Kinship care focuses on the assessment and approval processes for kinship carers of Looked After children. It also identifies the different legal requirements that local authorities will have to fulfil until the revised regulations are implemented. These revised Looked After Children Regulations have drawn significantly on the proposals of the Task Group set out in this Interim Guidance.
The longer-term vision for Kinship Care
For the longer term, the Task Group believes that fundamental changes in universal services and the benefits systems will be required to enable kinship carers to respond more easily to the particular needs of the children living with them. This could remove the need for statutory intervention or at least minimise the time required for the local authority to have a role as corporate parent in the child's life.
Some children will continue to need specialist services because of individual child or family issues. As well as this, some children legal intervention from a local authority, children's hearing or court to safeguard their security.
Local authorities will need to continue to provide a range of supports to kinship care families particularly those where the child has a formal Looked After status. The acceptance of the corporate parenting role of all local authority services and their community planning partners will help to progress the vision as well as respond to the current needs of the children in kinship care. The discretionary powers of local authorities to help families in need, including kinship carers, will also need to be considered as part of wider debates on supporting families who are struggling.
Local authorities across Scotland have already developed a range of supports for kinship carers and many solutions have emerged which help ensure the stability of this care setting and lead to improved outcomes for children. Some of these best practices will be drawn on in the full report of the Reference Group in the autumn. The emerging key supports are: advice on benefits; access to a social worker at all stages in the process for carers and child; financial and practical support at the start of the placement and continuing throughout it; respite; support and assistance for the child particularly from universal services, education and health, together with specialist services where necessary; support over contact; managing challenging behaviour; access to opportunities to develop their understanding of child development and attachment and family meetings to help to create a circle of support for the child and carers.
These are significant service demands but important ones. We can get it right for every child in kinship and foster care early on and as a result our Looked After children can achieve their full potential and their carers can provide stable and sustained placements. The savings to society in the long-run are incalculable.
Anne Black
Chair, National Reference Group,
Getting It Right for Every Child in Kinship and Foster Care
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