What the team does

Here in Derby, we have an experienced and dedicated Family and Friends’ team that sits within the Fostering and Permanence service.

The team will work in conjunction with the children’s social work teams during the assessments to make sure you are offered the right services and have a positive experience whilst you are assessed as long-term carers for the child or young person in your care. Prior to this assessment, the child’s social worker in most circumstances will have completed a viability assessment. This will be an indication if a further in-depth assessment is needed and necessary, for either the local authority or court to agree that the child or young person can remain in your care.

The team has a vast variety of professional backgrounds from being fostering social workers, children in care social workers and child protection social workers.

Viability assessment

This is a short assessment that should take no longer than 3 to 4 weeks. You will be visited as part of the assessment to allow your property to be seen. We will complete a police nation computer check and speak to you regarding your health, relationships, work and family commitments. At this stage from this information we will establish if your assessment is viable or not.

You will be provided with a copy of your assessment and should this not be a viable assessment you will be provided with information on how you can challenge or contest this.

Assessment stage (SGO or family and friends fostering)

In Derby, we currently use the CoramBAAF form K. You can access the website CoramBAFF- Information for kinship carers for further information or ask your assessing social worker for a copy of the report if you want to see a blank version of this.

For further reading visit the website Community Care - About the new standard of kinship care assessment.

You will be provided with information about what the assessment will entail during a pre assessment visit or on the first visit from the assessing social worker. If deemed appropriate and necessary, you will be encouraged to seek legal advice, and the local authority will fund a consultation for you. This will give you independent advice regarding the options open to you as carers.

We will need to complete various checks regarding your health, background and any previous criminality. This will be for anyone who is going to offering care to the child or young person and regularly visit and stay in the home. DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) will be applied for at this stage.

Whilst completing your assessment we will give you advise and guidance on education, health, family time (where the children will see their parents), finances and housing, to name a few. The assessments will vary in how long they take to complete for SGO assessments we have a duty to complete these within 12 weeks (subject to the above checks being returned to the local authority). For family and friends fostering
assessments (regulation 24 and 25) we aim to complete within 16 weeks, however we can seek an extension from fostering panel for 24 weeks.

Your assessing social worker will continue to communicate with you and see you on a regular basis to keep you informed of what is happening. These visits may be on a weekly basis and will be to visit yourselves on your own but also visits with the child or young person present. For further information on regulation 24 and 25 placements you can visit The Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010.

Also, the Family Rights Group has useful information for your reading: Helping families Helping children - Family Rights Group

Post order stage

Once an assessment has been completed (if needed) and following this being ordered in court, you will receive a visit from the child’s social worker alongside a worker from the Post Order Support team. Information of the support offered will be provided and this will give you an opportunity to ask any questions. The child’s social worker will remain involved for a period under a Child in Need (CIN) plan to support you as a new family unit to make sure you have everything in place needed before a time is agreed to end the social work involvement with your family.

The Post Order Support team is part of the Family and Friends’ team. Post order, the team of children’s practitioners will support and guide you when and if you require this from us. This could be around any concerns with education, behaviours, family time, changes needed if you have a support plan in place and to undertake financial reviews if you are receiving allowances or discretionary payments.

Following the order being granted you will receive a minimum of an annual review visit to give you opportunity to see a member of the team and discuss how life has been or seek additional support.

Some examples of how the Post Order team can support you are:

• Signposting and booking you onto any of our in-house training open to all our carers. This could be, for example, on attachment, family time, introduction to safeguarding or understanding challenging behaviours.
• Signposting you to the training on the kinship website and the support kinship can offer, including their local coffee mornings.
• Supporting you with housing needs whether this be a letter informing your housing association of your circumstances or directing you on how to bid on larger properties.
• Holding team around the family meetings with key professionals such as, schools, supporting with EHCP reviews or any SEND enquiries.
• Directing you to charities or organisations that can help with family time.
• Supporting you to speak with the child’s parents around challenges with family time.
• Supporting with any therapeutic need including consultations with external agencies who can provide ideas around parenting or support for children who have experienced trauma, loss, and adverse experiences.
• Refer you to support services as ‘affected others’ to Derby’s drug and alcohol services to seek support around birth parents who misuse substances and the impact this may have on your new family unit.

We also have a dedicated worker to complete assessments of needs for children eligible for the adoption and special guardianship support fund (ASGSF).

You will be informed during your assessment if the child or young person is eligible for ASGSF. ASGSF is a government incentive with funding through the Department of Education. Please speak to a member of the Post Order team if you would like to access this support.

An assessment of need can be completed on one or two home visits, and you will be contacted to complete this.