Agenda item

Mrs S Hammond, Policy and Performance Officer, was in attendance for this item

(1)       Mrs Hammond introduced the report and defined private fostering as an arrangement made privately, between a child’s parent and someone who is not a relative, for the care of a child. To be classified as private fostering, an arrangement would have to be intended to last for more than 28 days, and apply to a young person up to the age of 16 (18 if disabled).  No local authority is involved in making the arrangement, and no local authority money is payable in support of the arrangement, yet the local authority is required to assess the arrangement to check that it is suitable and meets the child’s needs.  Someone who is taking on a private fostering arrangement has to notify the local authority of the arrangements, yet many people simply do not know about this requirement and do not define what they are doing as formal fostering, and the local authority has no way of checking that they had been notified of private fostering arrangements going on.  Mrs Weiss added that Victoria Climbié had been in a private fostering arrangement when she died.

(2)       In discussion, and in Mrs Hammond’s and Mrs Weiss’s responses to Members’ questions,  the following points were highlighted:-

(a)       A parent specifying in their will that they wish their child to be brought up by a godparent would be entering the child into a private fostering arrangement, and their solicitor would have to set up a transfer of parental responsibility for both parties to sign;

(b)       In the UK, it is estimated that approx 20,000 children are in private fostering arrangements.  Referrals to the private fostering team are very low and come mainly from Children’s Social Services (CSS), and many private fostering arrangements are discovered accidentally.  In the 2008/09 financial year, the team had had 72 notifications of private fostering, and 43 children were in private fostering at the year end. As arrangements are temporary and transient, it is difficult to identify an exact number at any one time;

(c)        private fostering is not necessarily easier to identify when a child enters school.  Admissions forms for schools are not standard and do not contain the same information.  Adults signing a school form can specify that they are a ‘parent or guardian’, but are not required to give any further detail;

(d)       the private fostering team was working hard to increase the information it was able to get from schools, and a multi-agency partnership project in Ashford was looking into barriers to information being passed through;

(e)       Awareness of the issue and the need it identify private fostering in a school could be included in the training for School Governors;

(f)         Parents entering into private fostering arrangements could be encouraged to identify themselves as a way of accessing the extra support that their family might need, but it would need to be emphasised that this support could not be financial;

(g)       the private fostering team had been awarded the maximum possible score in a recent Ofsted inspection which had included visits to/interviews with young people and carers and social workers; and

(h)        The British Association of Adoption and Fostering (BAAF) had used its conference to raise awareness of private fostering and the key issues of safeguarding and the need to identify vulnerable children.

(3)       RESOLVED that:-

(a)       the information in the report and given in response to Members’ questions be noted, with thanks; and

(b)       the private fostering team be congratulated on achieving an excellent Ofsted assessment.