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Contents

1. Legal Considerations
2. Placement Timescales/Reviews
3. Placement Considerations

1. Legal Considerations

Children looked after are defined as being Children in Need and the County Council has a duty to provide a range of services for them.

Additionally, there are specific responsibilities on the County Council to provide appropriate placements for Children Looked After. However, the determination of the nature of the placement required by a Looked After Child is a matter of professional judgement and should be dealt with through assessment, planning and review on an individual basis. This should be performed in consultation with the children themselves and their parents or people with Parental Responsibility for them. 

Children and their families have their needs assessed using the Assessment Framework.  The Children, Young People and Families Directorate has the responsibility, with families, of identifying the most significant needs, of which, for Looked After children, a placement will be one.  The Directorate has the responsibility of deciding how these needs can be appropriately met. Plans will be put in place to meet them to an acceptable level. However, once it has been agreed that a child needs to be cared for by someone else for a period of time, the Directorate has a duty in law to establish whether any relatives could look after him/her on an informal basis.  Enquiries need to be made with all relatives. This includes the child’s other parent (in the case of divorced or separated parents), aunts, uncles, grandparents, older siblings and relatives of both parents. There is also a requirement to look at friends of the child and family.

A decision will need to taken about whether this needs to be done within the Looked After system - see Placement with Connected Persons Procedure - or by ensuring other services are accessed , e.g. through section 17 payments to help relatives - see Children Cared for by Relatives and Friends Outside the Looked After System Procedure.

However, if Care Proceedings are initiated and a Care Order is made, the child will be cared for within the Looked After system, including where they are over 16 and living independently.

Most Looked After young people aged 16 and over will receive leaving care support as Eligible Young People and, after they leave care, as Relevant Young People or Former Relevant Young People.

Young people who are not Eligible because they have not been in care aged 16 for more than 13 weeks since their 14th birthday but are considered in need of help /assistance may still receive services depending on the assessment.

2. Placement Timescales/Reviews

Any placement for a child looked after should only be until such time as the child can return home, providing this is the plan, and there should be active work with the child and his parents throughout the placement to plan for the child’s return home, or a permanent placement in another setting.  Short term or time limited placements should thus be the subject of focused work to keep them no longer than necessary. Children in the Looked After System should have a Permanency Plan made no later than four months after they are first Looked After, i.e. by the time of the child’s second Looked After Review - see Permanency Policy for Looked After Children and Permanency Planning and Family Finding for Children under 12 who are the subject of Care Proceedings or whose parents requested the child be Permanently cared for Procedure.

Placements should be subject to reviews, as required by regulations, covering the placement of children – see Looked After Reviews Procedure and Placement Plan Reviews Procedure.

Foster carers should also be subject to annual reviews as required by foster carer regulations – see Review of Foster Carers Procedure. Social workers should visit children in placement regularly and should also visit to support carers.

3. Placement Considerations

The Directorate is committed to providing safe, child-focused placements that offer a rich stimulating environment. Placements will work in an anti- discriminatory manner and will celebrate the child’s racial and cultural background whilst promoting equal opportunities and developing each child’s potential through education, work, social, leisure, and community activities

If the placement needs to be provided by the Directorate’s own resources, e.g., where family members are not available or suitable, there needs to be a clear assessment as to the needs of the child and the nature of the placement that would be best suited to meet them.

Key features would include:

• Age - family placement is clearly indicated for younger children;
• Geography - access to school;
• Contact - geography and any risk factors (e.g., confidentiality);
• Siblings - are siblings to be placed?;
• Special - skills of carers;
• Tasks - what sort of behaviour or other issues need to be managed?;
• Whether the child needs to be an only child;
• Placement duration - relief/respite/time limited;
• Any risk factors/risk assessment.

In particular, there needs to be an assessment of whether fostering, residential, supported independent living, or secure accommodation is indicated. In exceptional cases for young people under 16, there may be circumstances where the placement deemed most suitable is not in a registered care home or with a registered foster carer e.g. in the case of unaccompanied minors.

Young people presenting for an assessment post 16 will be entitled to the same level of thorough assessment as any other young person. This will need to determine whether their needs can be met - see Leaving Care Procedure.

It may not be possible to provide the placement of choice, or there may be compromises, e.g., a suitable foster home, but where the child might not be the only child.

The file should clearly record both the nature of the placement of choice and also the nature of the placement actually identified and any plans to address any issues arising, e.g.:

• Change of school;
• Help with transport to effect contact;
• Move to a foster home as soon as one becomes available;
• Mitigating steps to address any identified deficits of the placement.

Subsequent reviews should inform judgements about the suitability of the placement and the need to find alternative, different placements. It should be borne in mind that planning should look at all legal options so that children do not remain longer term looked after, unless there are definite reasons.

Please note all children Looked after at 16 who have been looked after for 13 weeks since their 14th birthday will be eligible for Leaving Care services and not entitled to claim benefits until 18, unless they become pregnant or have an entitlement to disability benefits - see Leaving Care Procedure.

It should be clear that all placement options could be right for some children at some stage.  None should automatically be considered as a second choice or second class option as a matter of principle, although for younger children and especially pre-school children, it is expected that family placement would be the placement of choice.

End