What Happens Now I am Approved?

Contents

1. Introduction
2. Your Role
3. What Information do I Need When a Child is Placed
4. Meeting The Child/Young Person
5. Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children
6. The Child's Care Plan
7. The Child's Placement Plan
8. The Children's Guide

1. Introduction

Congratulations, now you have been approved as a foster carer you will be allocated a supervising social worker from the fostering service. They will make sure you have all the information and support needed to offer the best possible placements to children and young people.

Your approval as a foster carer will be regularly reviewed, see Reviewing my Approval and Appeals.

You will be asked to enter into a Foster Care Agreement with the fostering service, which you will be required to sign annually at your review.

2. Your Role

• Providing a safe and caring environment for the child/young person;
• Supporting and meeting the health needs of the child/young person;
• Ensuring a child/young person’s attendance at educational settings including nursery, school, college and any placement. Encouraging them to learn and help them with their homework;
• Contributing to life story work while a child lives with you;
• Supporting and, if appropriate, facilitating family time with a child’s birth family and significant others;
• Supporting and, if appropriate, facilitating the transition between a fostering placement and an adoptive/other placement;
• Establishing routine, clear boundaries and having an understanding of issues that impact upon the child/young person;
• Supporting and promoting the child’s development so they can achieve their full potential and have the best life chances;
• Preparing the child/young person for independence.

3. What Information do I Need When a Child is Placed

A social worker from the Family Finding Team in the fostering service will contact you when they are looking for a family to care for a child/young person whose needs they believe you are able to meet. When they do, you need to work with the fostering service to make sure it is in the child’s best interests to be placed with you.

It will be useful to prepare a list of questions that you may want to ask when they call. If you are unsure about any placement you must discuss this.

You may want to ask:

1. The name and contact details for the child’s social worker;
2. The child's name, age, how they identify in relation to gender, ethnicity, religion;
3. Whether the child has any special dietary, cultural or linguistic needs;
4. The child’s legal status;
5. General picture of the family situation;
6. What are the family time arrangements?
7. How is the child’s health, do they have any allergies or medical problems, specific equipment or are they currently on medication;
8. Are they at school, nursery or placement? Are there any issues?
9. Does the child have any communication issues?
10. Are there any behavioural challenges?
11. Are there any known traumatised behaviours exhibited by the child, e.g. aggressive or sexualised behaviour?
12. Who will bring the child and with what clothes and belongings?
13. When you will have full information about the child.

You need as much information as possible about a child / young person before they come into your home.

Ideally, you will receive written information before the placement from the child’s social worker. Sometimes, for example in emergencies, there can be a delay, but this should be no longer than 5 days. No information can be withheld from you without a manager’s approval and this will only be in rare cases.

4. Meeting The Child/Young Person

Wherever possible there should be a period of introductions between you, your family and the child.

This should involve:

• The child/young person receiving information about you, your home and members of your family network – this will be your family profile that you have prepared (your supervising social worker can help you prepare one if you have not yet made one);
• The child/young person having at least one overnight visit to your home where possible before a placement is confirmed.

Throughout the introduction process, you should talk to the child/young person and provide them with general information about who lives in your household and who visits regularly, daily routines including bedtimes, meals, visitors, pocket money, school, pets and privacy.

The child should be encouraged to talk about what they expect so they can express any concerns before the placement starts.

5. Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children

From time to time, foster families will be needed to care for children who have entered the UK as an unaccompanied asylum seeking child or child victims of modern slavery including trafficking.

Some of these children will have been trafficked or persecuted and may have witnessed or been subject to acts of violence. Other migrant children may have been sent in search of a better life, or may have been brought to the UK for private fostering arrangement and subsequently exploited or abandoned when the arrangement fails.

As a foster carer, if you have a child placed with you in this situation, the Placement Planning Meeting and future reviews should help you understand the plan for the child and what you need to do to help support the child in placement, particularly in relation to meeting their cultural needs and addressing any trauma they may have experienced. Your Supervising Social Worker can help you to develop a better understanding of the child’s traumatic circumstances and the support which can be accessed for both you and the child/young person.

6. The Child's Care Plan

The child’s Care Plan provides information of the work that must be done to meet the needs of the child/young person. It is the social worker of the child or children who holds responsibility for specific advice or support in relation to the child and their Care Plan and Placement Plan.

The Care Plan usually includes:

• The child's Placement Plan (setting out why the placement was chosen and how the placement will contribute to meeting the child's needs);
• The Permanence Plan (setting out the long term plans for the child's upbringing including timescales);
• The Pathway Plan (where appropriate, for young people leaving care);
• The Health Plan;
• The Personal Education Plan;
• The contingency plan;
• The date of the child's first Looked After Review (within 20 working days);
• The name of the Independent Reviewing Officer.

7. The Child's Placement Plan

The Supervising Social Worker, you, the child/young person, family members and the child’s social worker will put together the Placement Plan. This is completed either on the day or within five days of a placement being made.

The Placement Plan covers:

• Purpose of the placement;
• Any agreements about health or educational needs;
• The child’s personal history;
• The child’s likes/dislikes;
• The rules of the placement, including how the child should behave;
• Agreements for family time between the child/young person, their family and other relevant individuals;
• When social work visits to the child and yourself will happen and any review meetings.

See Understanding Placement Plans and Child in Care Reviews.

8. The Children's Guide

The child/young person should receive this when they start a placement. This guide will help children and young people understand about foster care and provide information that may be important to them. It will tell them about their rights and how they can contact people such as their Independent Reviewing Officer, Children’s Commissioner or Ofsted if they wish to raise a concern. It will also explain the information which the fostering service keeps on them and why, including who it might be shared with, and their right to access their case file.

You should go through the guide with the child/young person in terms they understand.

If the child needs the Children’s Guide in another format such as in another language or Makaton, the fostering service should provide it.

See Children's Guide - A guide to Fostering for Children Aged 12 and Over.