chapter five: children ­ permanent, secure family life

This chapter sets out the changes the Government will make to achieve permanence for looked after children, including:

•    establishing a full range of options for permanent families;

•    decreasing delay by setting timescales;

•    improving planning and decision making by providing better guidance; and

•    providing better post-qualification training for social workers.

5.1    Children need permanence ­ a secure, stable and loving family to support them through childhood and beyond.

"The aim must be successful lasting placements with positive outcomes for children." Barnardo's in their response to the PIU Report

A range of options

5.2    Looked after children unable to return to their birth parents need new families as quickly as possible. In the short term, a foster family will care for them. In the longer term, the Government must provide a range of options for permanence to deliver high quality outcomes for looked after children. There are many already, including family and friends, residence orders, long-term fostering and adoption. But this list is not complete. There is no status which provides legal permanence, but lacks the complete legal break with birth parents of adoption.

5.3    Figure 1 shows this range of options, including long-term foster care, where they remain officially looked after by the council (as shown by the shaded box in Figure 1), informal care with wider family or friends, through more formal options such as residence orders, which normally end at age 16, to adoption. It also includes the proposed new status.

Permanence with wider family and friends

5.4    Under the Children Act 1989, the first duty of local social services authorities, where children cannot live with their birth parents, is to seek a home for them with their extended family. Finding a safe and caring new home for children with their wider family or friends allows them to keep important attachments and connections in their lives, and is therefore the preferred choice where it is possible and consistent with the child's welfare.

Figure 1 Routes to permanence for looked after children

Adoption

5.5    Adoption can offer children who are unable to return to their birth families a legally permanent new family, which they will belong to all their lives. Children say that this security, and a sense of 'belonging', is important to them (see Box). Adoption is therefore a key means of providing a permanent family for these children.

What children have said about adoption35 "In adoption you have a real mum and dad" "You cannot be taken away" "I can call them mum and dad" "I felt like my life was starting again"

5.6    Some looked after children, especially if they have developed a strong attachment to their foster carers, may want to be adopted by them. Some foster carers want to adopt the children in their care. Where this is in the child's best interests, it should be encouraged, as, like permanence with wider family, it allows the children to keep important attachments.

5.7    The new Standards specify that where a foster carer wants to adopt the child in their care, and that adoption would be in the interests of the child, the foster carer's application to adopt should be viewed positively and processed in three months ­ faster than adoptive parents who are not currently foster carers.

'Special guardianship'

5.8    Adoption is not always appropriate for children who cannot return to their birth parents. Some older children do not wish to be legally separated from their birth families. Adoption may not be best for some children being cared for on a permanent basis by members of their wider birth family. Some minority ethnic communities have religious and cultural difficulties with adoption as it is set out in law. Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children may also need secure, permanent homes, but have strong attachments to their families abroad. All these children deserve the same chance as any other to enjoy the benefits of a legally secure, stable permanent placement that promotes a supportive, lifelong relationship with their carers, where the court decides that is in their best interests.

5.9    In order to meet the needs of these children where adoption is not appropriate, and to modernise the law so it reflects the religious and cultural diversity of our country today, the Government believes there is a case to develop a new legislative option to provide permanence short of the legal separation involved in adoption. This view was strongly supported by responses to the consultation on the PIU report.

5.10    The Government will legislate to create this new option, which could be called 'special guardianship'. It will be used only to provide permanence for those children for whom adoption is not appropriate, and where the court decides it is in the best interests of the child or young person. It will:

•    give the carer clear responsibility for all aspects of caring for the child or young person, and for taking the decisions to do with their upbringing. The child or young person will no longer be looked after by the council;

•    provide a firm foundation on which to build a lifelong permanent relationship between the carer and the child or young person;

•    be legally secure;

•    preserve the basic legal link between the child or young person and their birth family;

•    be accompanied by proper access to a full range of support services including, where appropriate, financial support.

5.11    We will work with the key interest groups and stakeholders to develop the detail of our proposals to be included in the new legislation.

Illustrative case study36 Jane (13) and Sarah (9) have been in the care of the same foster carers for some time. They came into care as the result of Jane disclosing sexual abuse, and are unable to return home. The foster carers and the children would like to remain together but Jane does not want to be adopted. She wants to keep her birth name, have contact with some members of her birth family but live with her foster carers. 'Special guardianship' would provide her and her sister with a permanent home within their foster family.

Fostering

5.12    Long-term fostering may also have a role in providing a family for looked after children. It has proved particularly useful for older children with strong links to their birth families, who do not want or need the formality of adoption or 'special guardianship'. It will remain available for those children, as part of the spectrum of options available in planning for permanence.

5.13    Better permanence planning will help ensure the right children are placed and kept in long-term foster placements, and focused support will help achieve greater stability for those children.

Better planning and decision making

5.14    It is essential that decisions about a child's long-term future are based on the best possible evidence, reflect a thorough understanding of the child and their development, and the options available, and are made as quickly as possible. That is why the Government is improving training for social workers, introducing new planning frameworks and setting timescales for decision making.

5.15    Looked after children who need a permanent new family are extremely vulnerable. Every extra day spent without their new family makes a difference to their future development. Identifying the right choice for children is complex. But children must not be allowed to drift in care while decisions are delayed.

5.16    Children have a right to have their views listened to, recorded and acted upon, subject to their age and understanding, in the process of planning and making decisions about their future.

Timescales

5.17    Alongside this White Paper, the Government is consulting on new timescales for each stage of the adoption process for children. These have been developed on the basis of current best practice, and what is in the best interests of most children, even if at present many councils are not achieving them. Over time, the Government will expect all councils to observe the timescales, which will be finalised in the light of the consultation. It will monitor council performance on this.

Timescales for decision making and delivering a plan for children The draft National Standards set out that, for most children, the following timescales should apply: •    As soon as possible after becoming continuously looked after, and in no more than six months, the council makes a plan for permanence (which may include return to birth family or adoption), and sets timescales. •    Where adoption is the plan, a best interest decision will be made within six weeks. •    Within six months of the decision that adoption is in the child's best interests, the adoption agency agrees a match with prospective adopters. •    For children who are under care proceedings, for whom adoption is the plan, the agency should identify a placement within six months of the plan being agreed by the courts.

5.18    This means that, where the decision is made by six months that adoption is the only option for permanence, the child should wait no more than a year from becoming continuously looked after to being found a new family.

5.19    The National Standards will improve consistency of service from councils and adoption agencies across the country, and in particular ensure that decisions are made in a timely manner and in the child's best interests. They will also help to ensure that appropriate, timely progress is made in finding an adoptive family for a child. A senior manager in each council should keep track of these timescales on a case by case basis, and be responsible for ensuring that delays are avoided.

Better guidance

5.20    In 1999 the Department of Health, together with the Department for Education and Employment and the Home Office, published the Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and their Families³⁷. This provides a model to help social workers make judgements about the child's developmental needs and the parents' capacity to meet the child's needs.

5.21    The Government will bring together the Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and their Families and the Looking After Children System for planning for children in care into a common framework for assessment, planning, intervention and review for all children in need. It will include help with deciding whether the child can return to their birth family, and on making contingency plans to prevent undue delays.

The partnership between Bury and Salford Councils and the Goodman Project of the Manchester Adoption Society aims to improve the quality and pace of planning for children, by working towards family reunification while at the same time establishing an alternative permanent plan. The project has received positive responses from the judiciary and legal professionals, and benefits have been found to include a reduction in the number of placements. Potential permanent families are selected early on in the process, reducing the length of time to reach adoption where this becomes the plan. Birth parents are constructively engaged in the planning process.

5.22    The Government has also published guidance on Working Together to Safeguard Children³⁸, which includes information about decision making for children, and the role of Family Group Conferencing in working with families. Family Group Conferences are a process through which family members are enabled to meet together to find solutions to difficulties which they and their children are facing. They allow the skills and experience of the wider family, as well as of professionals, to be used in planning and decision making.

The Essex Family Group Conferencing Service has been operating since 1997, and has attracted more than 230 referrals. A conference is set up to include the child and as many of his or her extended family members and members of the community as are helpful to the child's future. The process is managed by social services, but they take no part in the decisions reached by the family. Of the 52 looked after children who were involved in a conference last year, families of 33 offered family placements that allowed them to stop being looked after.

Better post-qualification training for social workers

5.23    For those specialising in children's services, the Department of Health and the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work have jointly developed a new Post-Qualifying Award in Child Care. Social services departments have been asked to ensure that child care social workers are offered opportunities to achieve this new qualification.

5.24    This new award is designed to equip social workers who work with children and families to get the best result for the child. It looks at the importance of children having secure attachments and will assist social workers in deciding when a child would best be placed in a new family. It also gives social workers knowledge of the evidence base, to support their professional judgement, effective planning and decision making, and reports to courts. There are currently 329 students training for this award. The Government has set a target that 7,000 social workers should have completed the qualification by March 2006.

5.25    Council staff should also consider opportunities for shadowing, secondments, and exchanges with court staff, especially Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS) officers, to improve their understanding of the court system, and build better relationships. This will help care and adoption court proceedings to move faster, since council staff will have a better understanding of the reasons for some of the court's demands.

5.26    Councils are encouraged to arrange, with local courts, joint training courses, workshops and seminars on adoption for court staff, CAFCASS officers and social workers.