My Placement may be Breaking Down

Placements ending in an unplanned way nearly always leave all those concerned feeling bad. Your Supervising Social Worker will want to work with you to make sure that everything is done to support you with children and young people living with you and to manage difficulties. This could include the use of a placement support meeting.

The purpose of Placement Support Meetings is to:

1. Identify the current and future support needs of the placement;
2. Plan how these needs will be met;
3. Monitor and evaluate the provision of support.

Placement Support Meetings are likely to be particularly useful:

1. When a long-term foster placement is planned. Experience shows that a proactive approach in planning these placements and anticipating support needs greatly increases the chances of such placements being successful and not breaking down;
2. When a placement is thought to be at risk of breaking down (but prior to crisis point), a Placement Support Meeting can help analyse the issues that threaten the placement's stability and produce a plan of action to address these.

Placement Support Meetings will normally be chaired by the case responsible Team Manager. In addition the following should be invited to the meeting:

• Social worker for the child;
• Supervising Social Worker;
• Present Carers;
• Child or Young Person (if appropriate);
• Fostering family worker / family service worker (if involved);
• Parents of the child or young person (if appropriate);
• Anyone else who might usefully contribute to the goals of the meeting.

A judgment will often be required about whether the looked after child should attend the meeting. This judgment should take account of the following:

• The child's wishes and feelings;
• The age, understanding and developmental needs and disabilities of the child;
• The likely conduct and content of the meeting and possible impact on the child;
• A general presumption in favour of attendance unless there are good reasons against this;
• Whether the child/young person attends or not, regard needs to be given to:
• Maximising the child/young person's understanding of what is happening;
• Ensuring the child's/young person's views are obtained and taken account of.

Whether to invite parents will primarily be determined by a judgment as to whether their involvement will help promote the goals of the meeting. They should be kept appropriately informed by the social work team about what is happening to their child and their views sought and taken into account.

An agenda along the following lines is suggested:

1. Introduction and explanation of the purpose of the meeting;
2. General background (summary): o Family Background (summary);
   • Reasons for the child being Looked After;
   • Assessment of Needs;
   • Child’s Care Plan;
   • Placement History.
3. History of Current Placement;
4. What are the support needs of the placement?
5. Events/Factors which may undermine stability;
6. What has been done up to now to support placement/prevent breakdown?
7. What can be done to support the placement and/or prevent breakdown?
   • Does the focus of social work intervention need changing or clarifying?
   • Does the work need to focus on particular problems or tasks e.g. school attendance, staying out at night?
   • Would some contract-based work help?
   • What other forms of intervention might help e.g. solution focused?
   • What additional support might be helpful e.g. enhanced fostering worker/social worker visits, some form of respite?
   • Would the involvement of a Support Worker assist / referral to another agency assist?

Whilst working through this agenda, the child/young person's views are represented and taken account of.

The Chair ensures notes of the meeting are taken and circulated. Detailed minutes are not necessary,

However, not all foster care placements work out. Disruption is the word used to describe a placement which ends before it was supposed to.

A disruption can also occur when Children's Social Care feel the placement is no longer meeting the child's needs or you decide that you are no longer able to care for a child or the child decides they do not want to stay in the placement.

It is vital that for whatever reason the placement ended, you make the move for the child as positive as possible.

A Placement Support Meeting may be arranged by the child's social worker. These meetings may be held a little while after the actual disruption so that some of the immediate feelings of upset have reduced. They will consider all aspects of the placement in an attempt to understand what happened. Placement Support Meetings can sometimes feel threatening, but it is important to recognise that their purpose is not to blame anyone but to reach a better understanding of what happened, including whether more support should have been provided. Most carers who have been through a placement breakdown have found the Placement Support Meeting helpful.

Placement Support Meetings have a similar function and agenda to Placement Support Meetings with the following differences:

• They should be convened when placements are at or close to breakdown which the Placement Support process has not succeeded in addressing;
• Whilst still endeavouring to prevent breakdown, where this is judged to be inevitable, the meeting should help to plan this in a way which minimises the damage to the child;
• The meeting will also aim to identify lessons for future practice.

To facilitate the above the meeting should be independently chaired by an Independent Reviewing Officer. The Chair of the meeting should ensure that the circumstances that led to the disruption are reviewed, and that everyone has the opportunity to express their views. Foster carers who have attended all or part of the meeting will not be sent any information. It will be the responsibility of the professional supporting them to consider what to share with them from the contents of the report including any conclusions and recommendations that are relevant to them.

If the meeting concludes that any issue from the disruption indicates that the foster carers may be unsuitable to work with or care for children, this should be discussed urgently with the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO)/Team of Designated Officers. A review may be held to look at your approval terms.

For further information, please access the following link Nottinghamshire Children’s Social Care Service Procedures Manual, Placement Support and Disruption Meetings (Fostering) Procedure.