Newsletter July 07

Feature article: Care Matters: time to change: a change for foster carers?

The Government published the white paper, Care Matters : time for change, on 21 June 2007. The white paper looks at the provision of children’s services, laying out the Government’s approach to developing and improving them in the future. Care Matters introduces some very welcome developments for foster care although there were also some disappointments.

Family and friends carers

One of the most significant areas dealt with in the paper is that of the role of family and friends carers. These carers can play an important part in providing a child with the care that they need while allowing them to stay within their extended family and community. However their position is not always clear in terms of the support they can receive as some are approved foster carers and others are not. The Government is proposing to ensure that there is a suitable assessment process for family and friends carers and that local authorities produce clear policies as to the support that family and friends carers can receive.

Support Care

There is also an emphasis on the importance of the role of support care and short term breaks. The Government feel that children, where it is appropriate, should stay with their families and see support care as a way of providing families under stress with support and also providing children and young people with an opportunity to widen their experiences. After looking at the success of the pilot support care projects run by the Fostering Network, the Government aims to encourage all local authorities to provide a range of support care services. The Government also intends to increase the use of multi-dimensional treatment foster care.

Training and skills for foster carers

For foster carers, the section of greatest interest in Care Matters looks at the approach to training and support for foster carers. They are particularly interested in ensuring that the training and support that foster carers receive increases the likelihood of children and young people developing appropriate attachment. The training, development and support standards for foster care, launched by the Children’s Workforce Development Council in May 2007, play a large part in the Government’s strategy for foster care and the standards will be further developed to include the competencies required by carers looking after children with complex needs and those with particular needs such as teenage parents and those with disabilities.

To ensure that fostering service providers provide the training and support required by the standards, the standards will be linked to the revised National Minimum Standards for Foster Care which are due to be published in 2009. The Government will also require Ofsted to take achievement of the standards into consideration when assessing fostering services. They hope that this will lead to a quality framework which will clearly define the role of foster carers and the skills which they are expected to acquire and which will give greater consistency to the way in which foster carers are assessed.

The standards require that there is consistency in the skills which foster carers develop. In order to try and achieve this, the Government will launch a training course Fostering Changes. This training course has been developed to help carers deal with challenging behaviour and a module on children’s literacy will be included in the near future. They will also insist that foster carers be given guidance so that they can provide the necessary high quality sex and relationships education required by children and young people.

Supporting the education of the children in their care and acknowledging the importance of play and leisure activities also forms part of the work of foster carers and Care Matters says that support should be given to carers to ensure that they have the relevant information and resources to achieve this and can direct children and young people to necessary information.

At present children and young people sometimes have difficulties in taking part in activities due to carers having to seek permission from a wide range of other people. The Government hopes to improve this by allowing foster carers to give permission for children to participate to a reasonable extent in the same activities as their peers.

The emphasis on training does require a lot of commitment from foster carers and the Government will seek to reward foster carers by creating reliable systems for the recording of achievement by foster carers so that, in the event of the foster carer changing provider, they can easily demonstrate the skills that they have. Fostering providers will also be required to seek this information from a carer’s former provider and the former provider will have to provide this information.

There is planning for pilot projects which will allow young people to remain with their foster carers past the age of 18. This will involve changing the way in which foster carers are assessed for benefits so that they are not discouraged by financial necessity or left out of pocket by continuing.

Will Care Matters make a difference?

Although the majority of Care Matters as it relates to foster care is positive, there were some disappointments. The Fostering Network had hoped that a national registration scheme for foster carers and increased payments for foster carers would be included.

Payments for foster carers are mentioned in Care Matters as fostering providers will be required to provide a clear payment structure to foster carers detailing the skills and training required for each. However there is no provision for payments to be increased and this is important as foster carers can be left out of pocket for the work that they do and the increased requirements in terms of training may cause some carers to cease fostering due to financial concerns or lack of time as they have had to seek other employment. There is also a concern that insufficient funding has been allocated for Care Matters to succeed.

To learn more about the white paper, visit the Fostering Network website at www.fostering.net/campaigns/care_matters

If you feel strongly about Care Matters or any other issue affecting foster carers, go to www.fostering.net/campaigns