Foster care – Medway children’s care service ‘inadequate’

Medway’s service for children in care has been rated as inadequate in a report by the education watchdog.

Ofsted’s inspectors said there were 400 looked-after children and 209 with “care-leaver” status when the inspection was carried out in July.

The report highlighted delays in the completion of health assessments and a shortage of nurses. Medway Council said it was making “significant progress” and improvements would continue.

Ofsted inspectors said following a previous inspection in January, work in Medway had focused on ensuring all children were safe.

‘Foster carers supported’

The report said: “However, many changes have been recent and have not yet had the opportunity to impact, so deficits within services for looked-after children remain.

“Inspectors saw no looked-after child at immediate risk of harm. “Overall, outcomes for children and young people looked after are poor in relation to their emotional health and well being, their educational achievement and continued opportunities for education, employment and training.”

The inspectors rated the service’s “capacity to improve” as adequate, saying the local authority was “actively addressing inadequacies”.

The report praised Medway’s record in avoiding changes in children’s placements, saying a “high number” remained for more than two years.

‘More social workers’

The report highlighted poor quality of information on children coming into care. Councillor Mike O’Brien, lead portfolio holder for children’s services at the Conservative-run council, said: “We are making significant progress.

“The council brought in a completely new top team when it realised that much work needed to be done to improve this area and we are pleased that Ofsted have recognised this.”

The council said it was recruiting more social workers, a new director of social services and a new service manager for children in care.

Directory of children’s services Barbara Peacock, who joined last September, said “There is a lot of work to do, and we are clear on that fact, but Ofsted acknowledges we are heading in the right direction.

Councillor Adam Price, the Labour group’s spokesman for children’s services, said: “I’m deeply worried.

“We’re hearing that no child is under immediate risk, but it is worrying that there seems to be poor quality in terms of information on children when they come into care and also go out of care.”  He said the authority was having to go as far as Ireland to recruit social workers.

Source: BBC News 2013
Source: OFSTED 

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Liverpool City Council fails to give adequate support to 340 carers

Date Published: 01/08/13

Around 340 carers in the Merseyside area will have their allowances backdated after an investigation by the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) discovered Liverpool City Council had been underpaying them for years.

The investigation was brought about after a woman, who had been looking after her toddler nephew following a domestic violence incident, complained that the council was not paying her the correct benefits.

She claimed that the council did not consider her nephew a ‘looked after child’. As a result, she missed out on the appropriate support and financial payments that would have been available to her if the council had accepted that she was a family and friends foster carer, and the care she provided was not a ‘private arrangement’ between her and the child’s parents.

Some months later, and with the help of Liverpool City Council, the woman obtained a Special Guardianship Order for her nephew. And, while the council did pay her the Special Guardianship Allowance, it deducted Child Benefit from the amount she received despite the government recommending this should not happen when people also receive Income Support. 

She also said that the amount she was receiving as a special guardian was lower than other foster carers in the area were awarded.

Investigating the individual case, the Local Government Ombudsman discovered a wider problem in the Liverpool area, affecting 340 carers city-wide.

It found that the council was failing to pay those foster carers who look after children aged 0 to four-years-old at the National Minimum Fostering Allowance set by government each year, and also failed to pay the Special Guardianship Allowance (a separate benefit for carers who have parental responsibility for the children in their care) at the same rate as its foster carers.

Nigel Ellis, Executive Director for Investigations at the LGO, said:

“Many councils struggle to recruit carers to look after children who find themselves – for whatever reason – unable to be looked after by their parents.

“So it is only fair that these people, who do such a good job of giving children the chance of family life, get the benefits and allowances they rightly deserve. These allowances are not ‘pay’ – they are used to clothe and feed the children being looked after.

“I’m pleased to say that Liverpool City Council has quickly accepted it is at fault and has agreed to backdate the benefits to both the complainant and the 340 other carers affected. I hope this swift response will go some way to alleviate the trouble the underpayment may have caused.

”I would urge other local authorities to look at their own procedures to ensure that carers in their areas are not experiencing the same problems that those in Liverpool have encountered.”

The LGO has recommended that the original complainant receive backdated allowances of £10,912 and be provided with notification about the rate at which she will be paid the Special Guardianship Allowance. Liverpool City Council has also agreed to pay that allowance without the deduction of Child Benefit while she is in receipt of Income Support.

Liverpool City Council has also agreed to carry out a review of its practice of deducting Child Benefit from those on Income Support in receipt of Special Guardianship Allowance.

The council has agreed to backdate payment of its Special Guardianship Allowance at the same rate as its Fostering Allowance rate from April 2010, affecting around 146 people. It will also pay all foster carers, looking after children under four, the Fostering Allowance in line with or above National Minimum Fostering Rates from April 2013 and will backdate the underpayment to April 2011, affecting an additional 194 carers.

Source: Local Gov Ombudsman

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Fostering Agency Parallel Parents' Leaflet criticised

Fostering Agency Leaflet

The leaflet has been delivered to council housing tenants in Leeds
A fostering organisation has been criticised for encouraging council tenants to avoid paying a spare room subsidy by giving a child a home.

Parallel Parents leaflets which have been delivered in Leeds say “Avoid the bedroom tax. Help change a child’s life. Become a foster carer”.

Carers are exempt from recent benefit cuts for tenants with spare rooms. Parallel Parents said the use of the leaflets was just one recruitment strategy.

‘Truly appalling’
Carole O’Keefe, who received one, said: “I find [it] absolutely abhorrent. “I wouldn’t consider foster care simply to pay my bedroom tax or to avoid the bedroom tax.

“Perhaps people who are desperate not to be evicted from their homes, they might well be the wrong sort of people. If financial gain was the sole motivation the applicant would not be approved”

British Association for Adoption and Fostering

Susan Stacey, a foster carer from Bradford, said she was “appalled” by the leaflet.

She said: “Foster carers must be dedicated to protecting and nurturing young people and not doing it for financial gain. “If anyone thinks that foster care is about filling a bedroom they are badly advised – it is the most stressful and yet the most rewarding thing l have ever done in my life, where the child always comes first.

“If l worked for the agency involved l would seriously consider looking for another agency, as their recruitment policy is well and truly appalling.”

Foster carers in the UK will continue to receive rent payments towards an “additional room” as long as they have fostered a child or become an approved foster carer in the previous 12 months, the government has said.

In a statement Parallel Parents, an independent organisation based in Stockport, said the leaflet was “just one recruitment strategy, a way of encouraging people to become foster parents”.

The British Association for Adoption and Fostering said a foster carer would only be approved if they “fully appreciate they are providing a child-focused service”.

It said: “If financial gain was the sole motivation the applicant would not be approved.”

Source: BBC 2013

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