Future of foster care: consultation

Part 5: Flexible Fostering Approach

Introduction

As mentioned earlier, we want to build on the good practice and creativity in evidence across Scotland, and the wider UK, and strengthen provision of fostering in our communities. A flexible fostering approach will allow us to respond nimbly to the varied and complex needs of children, and also to be responsive to new approaches and societal and cultural changes.

Grounded in our national approach Getting It Right For Every Child (GIRFEC), it would be child-centred, providing a strengths-based, holistic approach to supporting children, young people and families when it is needed, for as long as it is needed.

The sections below set out proposals for the different elements of a flexible fostering approach that we want to actively promote and support, so they become normalised as we move towards delivery of The Promise by 2030.

Some of the proposed elements will enhance the alternative family care that foster carers currently provide, and others may be additional services which reflect the new skills and models of support already beginning to be established in Scotland. The elements required to ensure the best support would depend on each child’s care plan, their needs and that of their family.

Our intention is to build on the existing skills, experiences and qualities of foster carers, but also provide enhanced training and support where it is needed. We want foster carers to feel confident, empowered and supported as a valued, trusted and inclusive member of the multi-disciplinary team around the child. This will enable them to provide the best care possible, and to take a more active role in supporting birth families, where appropriate. This reads across to a recommendation in the review of the Children’s Hearings System^[8], currently being consulted on, that foster carers should be able to contribute prior to a Hearing taking place, and section 7 sets out our separate proposals to support foster carer voices more broadly.

Not all the elements of the flexible fostering approach will be appropriate for every child, and foster carers all bring their own unique skills and strengths to the task. The main role for a foster carer to provide alternative family care will remain, but we see our vision enabling many carers to be confident in taking their skills and relationships into a broader arena. For lead professionals and other members of the team around the child, we hope this vision enables them to utilise the skills of the team to best effect. This will help us deliver The Promise.

A potential additional benefit is that it may also attract more people from diverse backgrounds into fostering.

Following analysis of the outcome of this consultation, we will work collaboratively with the sector and foster carers to consider any implications for recruitment, assessment, approval and reviewing of foster carers.

Central to the flexible fostering approach will be ongoing high-quality training and support for foster carers, and how this can be provided, recognising the current challenges in the social work and social care sector impact. We know that evidence from innovative projects such as Mockingbird^[9][10], which operates across the UK, shows that peer support and being valued by the whole team around the child can improve how supported foster carers feel, their mental wellbeing and resilience, and, ultimately, retention. Sustainability of projects/support is also an important area for discussion.

It is key that any changes of focus for foster carers is agreed, and clearly set out in the Foster Care Agreement covering the specific roles and responsibilities of foster carers, alongside those of others supporting the child.

We welcome your views on the proposals. We are committed to working with local partners, frontline workers and the fostering community, including children and young people, to shape and implement the flexible fostering model.

Elements of flexible fostering approach

The different elements proposed are:

• High quality alternative family-based care which provides a positive family experience for infants, children and young people in the foster carer’s own home. To make this work better, we have set out some proposals to address the existing challenges in the system you have told us about. More detail is in section 7.
• To build the potential and capacity of existing foster carers to support and facilitate family time where appropriate, in line with the child’s care plan, so that children, including infants, can keep in touch with people that are important to them. This is relevant even when it is not safe for child to return home.
• As part of the child’s plan, foster carers may, in some situations, have a role in supporting birth families whose children are in foster care, to facilitate reunification of the child or young person with their birth family. Research in England shows that, where reunifications fail, it can be devastating for the child. Re-entering care can also add to an already overburdened system and be costly to the public purse^[11]. A foster carer may play an important role, including facilitating strong post-care advice and support to strengthen the child and family connections and encourage sustainability of relationships. Any return home for a child is always carefully assessed, planned, and should be supported for as long as needed. This approach was echoed in the Children’s Hearings Redesign report which suggested that children should maintain contact with caregivers after they return home – something we know is already a feature of fostering in Scotland. For those who are unable to return to live with their birth families, projects such as Lifelong Links^[12] aim to ensure that a child in care has a positive support network, including birth family connections around them to help them during their time in care and into adulthood. A foster carer’s role will also include helping improve transitions into Continuing Care placements or permanency arrangements, which can be staying with the foster carer or transitioning to other carers or care settings, as well as through into adulthood where appropriate. This could involve support beyond 16 years of age, by providing practical help, advice and encouragement akin to birth and extended families.
• Foster carers may be well placed to have a role supporting families on the edge of care to enable more children to remain home. Short breaks are already a category of registration for foster carers, and such provision can be part of a plan to sustain a child with their family or help at times of family crisis. This element is evidenced as a critical part of the successful Step Up Step Down programme (alongside mentoring and training for parents, therapeutic nurture groups for children, and community supports for the whole family) which shows how foster carers can play a key role in supporting families, parents and children, with appropriate social work support. A small scale evaluation^[13] showed that parents found it easier to build trusted relationships with family support foster carers than social workers. It also showed that, from the children and families supported, 95% remained with their birth parents.
  This would be a distinct foster care role, additional and sitting alongside high quality alternative family-based care. We know from Step Up Step Down that it requires specialist and highly trained foster carers, and recruitment is key. It can include mentoring skills, teaching practical support and advice, and modelling and teaching good parenting skills. High quality training and the support of the multi-disciplinary professional team is crucial for this role. This will ensure there is clarity of remit, and appropriate safeguards are in place for the carer and child/family. We also want to ensure foster carers do not feel isolated. Peer support can be helpful, and we would work with local authorities to encourage development of such networks.
• Building on existing short break provision, regular breaks, which are also child centred, would be provided to existing foster carers, or to families experiencing difficulties. This equally applies to children having short breaks from their carers - where children do not have an extended family network of their own, short breaks offer the opportunity to experience this aspect of family life. Short breaks should include infants in care and can also be particularly useful for kinship care families. This could help build an extended family for both children and foster carers, with potentially foster carers having a network of approved people who could look after their foster children for sleepovers, days out etc.
• Alongside professionals, we propose using more experienced foster carers who no longer wish to foster full-time, to mentor new foster carers, deliver foster carers’ training and share practice and knowledge. This could be expanded to providing support to kinship carers, and those who are fostering to adopt.
• Potentially, the facility, where it is appropriate, for a foster carer to stay in a family home, for a short time, to provide immediate support and care at times of family crisis. This type of support could only be provided where the parent(s) are in agreement. It would benefit the child as it would keep them in their local community, at the same school and with their friends, minimising the disruption they experience. We envisage that this would only be used in rare circumstances, and that it would require further consideration of both the legal and practical parameters, responsibilities, oversight and regulation to determine if it is a workable aspect of flexible fostering. If we take it forward, we will also need to think carefully together about how foster carers were trained and supported as it is very different to their current role. We welcome your views on what scenarios you can envisage this being appropriate, and if it would be helpful. An opposite proposition might be that a child and birth parent live with a foster carer, and we would also welcome your views on that.

Some of the elements outlined above already exist in practice and services across Scotland. Our vision is to see them become more strongly embedded and readily available across all of Scotland, as we move towards 2030. We believe that flexible fostering is the approach of the future. Although it will require a shift in mindset and not happen overnight, it will, in time, strengthen fostering in our communities, give foster carers the opportunity to develop new skills, and better meet the varied needs of the child and young person, and their family circumstances.

Questions

What are your views on the proposed flexible fostering approach?

What are your views on the seven different elements in the flexible fostering approach?

What implications does a flexible fostering approach have for how fostering is funded and how foster carers are remunerated?

How can the Scottish Government, working with you, support the delivery of the flexible fostering approach?

Independent Fostering Agencies

In discharging their duties, local authorities provide care and accommodation themselves, and they purchase the remainder from independent providers

(known as IFAs) by virtue of arrangements made with registered fostering services under Part Xiii Of The Looked After Children (Scotland) Regulations 2009. The Promise made it clear that “Scotland must avoid the monetisation of the care of children and prevent the marketisation of care".

In Scotland, the majority of fostering placements are provided by local authority foster carers, with IFAs providing around 31% of foster placements. Currently there are 25 registered IFAs. They are required to register with the Care Inspectorate as providers of a fostering (care) service under Part 5, chapter 3 of The Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010, (“the 2010 Act”). In particular, section 59(3) of the 2010 Act requires that a person who provides a fostering service must be a voluntary organisation. As defined in section 105(1) of the 2010 Act, a voluntary organisation means a body, other than a public or local authority, the activities of which are not carried on for profit. This means IFAs, as providers of fostering services, are required to operate for the purposes of their Care Inspectorate registration under the principle of ‘not for profit’.

Moreover, many IFAs are also registered charities under The Office of The Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR). This requires them to meet the charity test which, among other things, means that they are carried out only for charitable purposes, providing public benefit and using their funds and property only for those purposes.

Whether or not an organisation is established on a not for “private” profit basis will depend on how it is constituted or set up. For example, a charity or voluntary organisation can make a profit, but those profits then go back into the organisation to advance its mission or aims, rather than going to shareholders or business owners.

IFAs are not required to pay their foster carer the Scottish Recommended Allowance (SRA) and, like local authorities, there is no obligation to publish their fostering allowance rates. All children placed with IFAs are placed by local authorities who pay the IFA the rate agreed with the IFA. This may be in the form of a fee, allowance and management fee, or a single payment where the elements are not broken down. The broader issue of transparency around allowances and fees is covered under ‘Financial Support’ in section 7.

Local authorities recruit and review foster carers and have a legal responsibility to place children in an alternative care setting if they are unable to stay at home. Local authorities are able to make arrangements with IFAs who are registered fostering services if they are unable to find a suitable local authority carer. Local authorities have to pay for this service. Placements can be purchased via the Scotland Excel Foster Framework^[14] and also by the local authorities' own contracts or occasionally on a spot purchased basis.

In line with The Promise, we want children who cannot stay at home to be able to stay in their local community, to maintain their friends and relationships and remain at the same school. Multiple moves, and moving out of local neighbourhoods, can be destabilising and further traumatise a child. However, often where an external IFA placement requires to be used, children are placed outside their local authority area, or another part of the country. This type of transition can be deeply impactful on children and young people, and especially when it is for short stays and not permanent.

There is indicative evidence that local authorities could provide some placements more cheaply than by purchasing them from IFAs. The Competition and Markets Authority Children’s social care market study^[15] found that children are not always gaining access to placements that appropriately meet their needs, or in appropriate locations, and local authorities are sometimes paying too much for placements. In addition, IFA placements in Scotland were higher than in England and Wales. On the other hand, we have been told anecdotally that some carers feel better supported in IFAs.

Any move away from the reliance on IFAs, if desired, will take time. It is likely that local authorities will continue to rely on commissioning places from independent providers, and that new placements to increase capacity will be needed, to reflect changing needs, and to replace lost capacity (e.g. through foster carers retiring).

In Scotland, the Care Inspectorate (CI) has no formal market oversight role or function in respect of care services (including fostering services), but it asks services to declare that they are ‘not for profit’ at the time of registration.

Questions

What is the role of Independent Fostering Agencies (IFAs) in the future of fostering?

Should we require all IFAs to have charitable status? Please explain.

Should we limit how much local authorities can pay to IFAs? If so, why and how would we do it?

Should IFAs be required to pay their foster carers the Scottish Recommended Allowance (SRA)?

What more could be done nationally to support local authorities when paying for placements from IFAs (including forecasting, market shaping and procurement)?