New local authority duties:
• Make all reasonable efforts to raise awareness among
local communities of the need to notify private fostering
arrangements to the local authority
• Check a private fostering arrangement before a child is
placed in it, where advance notice is given
• Closely monitor the operation of the existing notification
scheme locally, with a view to ensuring they comply with existing
and new duties.
After years of inertia on the issue, the government indicated this week that it is prepared to tackle the issue of private fostering, writes Derren Hayes.
However, proposals to beef-up the existing system by giving local authorities new duties for paying greater attention to raising awareness of the issue and proactively monitor and inspect private foster carers, have fallen short of campaigners’ expectations.
While all welcomed the new plans – outlined in a letter from children’s minister Margaret Hodge to children’s charities – some felt that the only way of effectively regulating private fostering is by establishing a register of private foster carers and for them to be inspected against a robust set of standards. They argued this is needed because too many private foster carers are either unaware of the requirement to notify authorities or deliberately fail to.
The proposals, which Hodge hopes to include in next month’s Children’s Bill, will be underpinned by regulations requiring councils to appoint individual officers to monitor the effectiveness of arrangements. She said the proposals will be paid for out of the £90 million safeguarding children grant.
The government also announced plans to introduce national minimum standards for private fostering to be enforced through inspection in September as part of the response to the Victoria Climbie inquiry.
In her letter, Hodge said the government rejected a formal registration and inspection system because “it might drive some private fostering arrangements underground and would not work any better than a notification scheme”.
Professor Bob Holman said that while a register would be “useful” it isn’t a panacea.
He welcomed the emphasis on local authorities being more proactive in identifying private foster carers, plans for a designated officer and ringfenced money to fund it.
“It will depend how much is given,” he said. “It should be enough for one specialist officer, with help from support and clerical staff and travel expenses. A minimum of £50,000 per authority would be needed.”
Brendan McGrath, private fostering co-ordinator for Gloucestershire Council, said the key to creating a successful system is ensuring all agencies share information about children rather than setting up a register.
“I know of a case where immigration, education and police officers have known of a child that has been privately fostered, but social services hasn’t been told about them until something has gone wrong,” he explained.
McGrath believes councils need to inform all agencies involved with children and families, faith groups and community groups about the responsibility of private foster carers to inform social services of arrangements. Some children are sent to the UK from west Africa to live with carers so that they can get a better education.
“Every child is known to someone: a neighbour, teacher or doctor.”
He agreed that some private foster carers “feel uncomfortable about giving information to an authority” because of immigration issues and admits standards are sometimes lower than those applied to local authority foster carers. “You have to do a lot more than just letting people come to you.”
Angus Geddes, a senior social worker at Swindon Council, said he has been lobbying for a register for years, but thinks the new proposals will work if councils take being proactive seriously.
“The problem has always been that it is a low priority for councils. Since we had an awareness campaign last year we’ve received more referrals from education welfare officers, particularly of local teenagers privately fostered,” he added.
Geddes explained that the campaign had highlighted the growing number of 14-15-year-olds that were being privately fostered – many had run away from home to live with friends, boy/girlfriends, or other families – and expelled the myth that most children were sent from west Africa.
“The number of west African children privately fostered has dropped from 40 to 10 in recent years. Now between 10-15 per cent of our fostered children are living under private arrangements,” he added.
Both the Fostering Network and Baaf Adoption and Fostering welcomed the new measures, but still believe that a register is the right approach over the long term.
Beverley Clarke, a health visitor at Lambeth Primary Care Trust and chairperson of the private fostering special interest group at the Community Practitioner Health Visitors Association, wass not convinced the proposals would work because standards would still not be high enough.
“We need to say that you are either approving a carer or not. Registration seems to be the only way of doing that. You could then have a pool of people that you’d take referrals to.”
Clarke also raised concerns over the amount of time the government intends to give the beefed-up system, before considering whether to introduce a register through a clause in the new bill.
“It could be as high as four years. This is too long; two years should be the maximum. We should know after the first set of data.
“We need to get a clear message out to the community that this is what is required and this is who you need to contact. If you don’t have that it makes a mockery of the whole thing and reinforces that system,” she added.
New regulations are likely to require councils to:
• Appoint an individual officer with responsibility for
monitoring the effectiveness of the local authority’s private
fostering notification system
• Make clear the general duty of co-operation between
agencies outlined in the Children’s green paper includes
private fostering
• Ensure inter agency co-operation and discharge of the
duties on private fostering becomes a specific function of the
local safeguarding children board
• Ensure the new inspection regime covers the effectiveness
of inter-agency co-operation on private fostering.
