Some local authorities have been quick to embrace and implement the new foster care standards, but organisations for foster carers believe there is still much to do.

Audrey Thompson reports

In June last year the definitive national standards for foster care were published after a consultation process that involved thousands of people, included every local authority in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and which sent more than 15,000 questionnaires to children and young people.

Divided into three sections, the standards contain detailed objectives built around addressing the specific needs and rights of the child or young person, providing effective support and supervision of the foster carers, and establishing a high quality foster care service from each local authority.

Local authorities had until the end of March to submit an audit of their services to the Social Services Inspectorate. Although it is still too early to tell how many authorities failed to comply with this directive, there is already some anecdotal evidence that one or two authorities are, astoundingly, still unaware of their responsibilities in this area - despite receiving a letter from SSI chief inspector Denise Platt to remind them.

Not all local authorities, however, have been so lax. Warwickshire social services, for instance, have implemented many of the standards, and in one or two areas are exceeding them.

The council was one of the first to close all its children's residential homes and has more than 80 per cent of its 400 looked-after children in foster care, with the other 20 per cent in voluntary, independent, specialist or out of county homes. For some time it has had its own foster care standards in place. "Very comprehensive and with detailed performance indicators too," says Julia Wilson, the foster care development officer.

Warwickshire still has plenty of work to do though. One of the objectives of the national standards is that all foster care applicants should be processed within six months. "We reviewed our position and have since put in place a system that gets applicants through quicker," says Wilson. "All the administration for assessing applicants has been centralised, rather than being split between our five districts, and we have created a new post and appointed someone to do that work.

"We are still around the seven- or eight-month mark but we are getting better. Some people take slightly longer to process because of their personal circumstances. But we are demonstrably better than we were."

Wilson insists there is not a lot of difference between the national foster care standards and Warwickshire's own. All that is needed is for the department to "sharpen up" what it is doing and how it is doing it.

In building on the standard about health care and development of the child, however, the council has a specific indicator that says "all professional partnerships in the foster care services will be active in communicating the dangers of smoking to the children and young people for whom they are caring".

Wilson says: "The national standards have 13 criteria under standard 10 while we have 16. It may seem like nitpicking but our standards are very precise and we are very proud of the standard we have set ourselves."

Telford and Wrekin Council decided to audit its foster care services in a two-day workshop held jointly with Shropshire Council. Sarah Moore, team manager of the family placement team at Telford and Wrekin, found that because the workshop involved all social work staff, not just those directly involved in family placement, it was immensely useful in bringing all those with an impact on foster care up to speed.

Telford found that it scored highly on the NVQ programme for training foster carers that has been running for two years. However, the areas Moore considers are in most need of action revolve around standards on the training needs of the sons and daughters of foster carers (standard 15.12) and respite breaks from fostering (standard 22.9).

The council had not previously addressed the needs of foster carers' sons and daughters except when social workers spent time with a family on an individual basis. Also, there had been no payments to foster carers when children were not in the foster placement, for instance if the child spent a weekend or had a break with another foster family.

In response, Telford has now established a group where young people of foster families meet with staff and also get a chance to talk to children of prospective foster carers. And on the issue of respite break payments, Moore says: "This is something we've been wanting to do for a long time and the standard now gives us the opportunity to really push for it."

Of the 270 conditions listed under the 25 standards, 97 were fully met by Telford and Shropshire with only nine not met at all. "We were quite rigorous about asking not just whether the structure is in place but whether it is working in practice," says Moore.

All of this is to be welcomed but implementing the national standards is not going quite so well in foster carers' eyes. The National Foster Care Association is still finding foster carers who have not even heard about the standards, who have been unable to get hold of copies of them, and whose local authorities have not involved them in their auditing processes.

Katrina Phillips, at the NFCA, says: "From talking to our young people's project worker, and to staff dealing with foster carers, it seems the impact of the standards still has not really filtered through on the ground. It's too early, perhaps, to see real results at the sharp end but the lack of information foster carers have is an indication that local authorities may not be doing as much as we had hoped."

Debra Gibbs, an independent foster care consultant, goes a little further. She expected most foster carers to have been told about the standards by now but instead has found herself in training sessions having to explain everything from scratch. "Local authorities really need to have alerted their carers by this stage. It's been almost a year," she says.

Over the course of this year there is going to be a national inspection of foster care by the Social Services Inspectorate using the national foster care standards as its basis. And the Department of Health is also planning to have a series of implementation seminars to encourage local authorities to talk to each other about how far they have gone with the programme. This will help to keep the pressure on.

However, says John Simmons head of development at the British Agencies for Adoption and Fostering, it should be remembered that implementing the standards is a very big challenge. "Some local authorities will be coming up from a relatively low base and have a lot of work to do to catch up."

Certain standards have been given priority by the different interested parties. It's important for foster carers to have written guidelines about how they should be working, for the children of foster carers to have a voice, for fostered children to be properly assessed and matched with the right foster families.

The priority for local authorities must be to implement as quickly as possible all of the national foster care standards. The NFCA, while acknowledging that resources are scarce, wants the standards fully implemented by 2002. Three years from publication to implementation does not seem too unreasonable.

PRINCIPLE VALUES

In compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and UK child care legislation, the government, when devising the standards last year, agreed to promote:

· High quality care in a family setting - for all children and young people who need it, to aid their return to their own family wherever appropriate.

· Priority for the needs of the child or young person in determining each foster placement - with agencies recruiting and retaining a wide range of carers to meet every child's needs.

· Respect for and recognition of the importance of the ethnic origin, cultural background, religion and language of children and young people, their families and foster carers - in the planning and provision of each placement.

· Consideration of the gender, sexuality and any disability of children and young people who are fostered - so individual needs are met within every placement.

· Continuity in the lives of children and young people - so their identity and education can be maintained and developed, their physical and mental well-being promoted and their full potential achieved.

· A partnership embracing parents and children, carers and their families, social work staff and the placing agency - all planning and working in the best interests of the child who is fostered.

· Continuity and consistency in training, support and information for foster carers and social work staff - to enable them to meet the needs of each child.

· Respect for foster carers - as the partners of other professionals in the fostering team.

· Assistance to be made available to every young person leaving foster care to live independently - with additional financial and other support made available to foster carers able to offer continued care and support to young people during this transition.