Foster a Future - Newcastle City Council

Foster a FutureStatement of PurposeThe Facilities and Services Provided by theFostering ServiceFostering PlacementsEmergency PlacementsSome placements are made at times of acute crisis for families or when a child'ssafety can only be achieved by providing foster care. Sometimes the children andyoung people in emergency foster placements are subject to Police ProtectionOrders, Emergency Protection Orders, or Interim Care Orders. These placements arearranged by the Placements Team, and this Team receives detailed information aboutthe personal history and needs of the child or young person from their social workerand then identifies an appropriate foster placement. The Placements Team liaiseswith the social worker, the foster carer and the foster carer's own supervising socialworker from the Fostering Service to ensure the identified foster placement issuitable for the child.Short-term and respite placementsShort-term and respite placements are helpful in enabling families who are caringfor a child or young person to have a short period of time apart while they tackle aserious problem, resolve a crisis, have a health need attended to, or take a break. Inthe same way, children and young people may also need a short break for similarreasons from their usual carer. The benefits of a short term or respite placement areidentified and assessed by the social worker from the Children and Family Team, whothen makes a request to the Placements Service.Both full time foster carers and shared care carers work very hard to meet the needsof the child or young person they are caring for. Occasionally they will also needshort breaks while they attend to their own needs and the needs of their families.Their supervising social worker arranges the break with the Placements Service.Respite or short breaks not only benefit carers, but also children and young peopleas it enables them to experience new people and different situations.Permanent PlacementsChildren and young people are sometimes cared for in permanent foster placements.It may be that they cannot return home to their families for very serious reasons, or,it is not appropriate for them to be adopted. Children and young people inpermanent foster care are usually, but not always, subject to Care Orders.When the Care Plans are being made for a child or young person, the need for apermanent placement is identified. The Fostering Service recruits, trains andapproves some of its foster carers to provide permanent care, and when the need fora permanent placement is identified in the Care Plan, the social worker from theChildren and Family Team makes a referral to the Family Finder of the FosteringService. A referral meeting is held to advise the Fostering Service as accurately aspossible of the child or young person's personal history and individual needs. TheFamily Finder will then strive to identify an appropriate placement for the child.The Family Finder will match a child or young person with the carer who can bestmeet their needs. The Fostering Service uses the forms and assessment format of theBritish Agencies for Adoption and Fostering (BAAF) to provide information about thechild or young person and their prospective permanent carers to the Fostering Panel.The Panel is made up of health and education professionals, social work practitionersand managers, foster carers and an elected Member of the City Council. The Panelconsiders the needs of the child or young person, looks at the skills, abilities andexperience of the proposed foster carers and either approves or rejects the match.Community Fostering SchemeThe Community Fostering Scheme works with the child’s social worker to helpmaintain the child in their own family home, or if the child has already been placed infoster care, to help reunify the child with their own family if this is the plan for them.The Foster Carers in the scheme are skilled and experienced at engaging with childrenand their families and in helping them to achieve their goals. The CommunityFostering Scheme ensures that there is always someone there to listen to the childand to put their wishes and choices at the front of any decisions that are made.Foster carers working for the scheme have regular supervision with the social workerfrom the Fostering Service coordinating the scheme, and they also meet regularly forgroup supervision and to share experiences and learning.BME Support Scheme/ Sahara SchemeNewcastle Fostering Service is committed to matching the needs of children withappropriate foster carers and with ensuring that as many children as possible arefostered within the Service and within the boundaries of Newcastle. From time totime it is not possible to place a child from a specific Black minority ethniccommunity with a foster carer from the same ethnicity despite the recruitmentinitiatives of the Marketing and Management Team. When this happens we hope tobe able to provide the child and their foster carer with a trained and qualified fostercarer from the same ethnicity as the child who will visit the child and advise and helptheir foster carer to best meet the child’s needs.Newcastle is one of 11 Local Authorities across the North of England who involvesthe services of the Sahara Project. They provide a black minority ethnic fostering andadoption recruitment, assessment and support service in each local authority. Thisinvolves a close working relationship during assessments of applicants from blackand minority ethnic groups.6 7