Our support to you

You should receive the following forms of support:

Clear and transparent information about your role

You have the right to know what you can expect from us and what we expect from you, as well as all the information you need to care for an individual child.

You’ll have an individual Foster Carer Agreement with Action for Children Fostering that sets out roles and responsibilities, but here is a summary of what you should have access to and where to find out more.

This handbook summarises key information for:

• Safeguarding Quick Reference: how to report any concerns or incidents of children’s care or seek help and advice [link back to Section].
• Caring for a child, including communicating with all the care team [link back to second section 2].
• How Action for Children will support you, monitor and review care.

Action for Children Fostering will provide a range of further information as follows:

• Your induction guide contains full details of what you’ll need to do in your first year of fostering and how your supervising social worker and our team will help you.
• As carers you work with Action for Children Fostering within a clear legal framework. In England this includes the Fostering Services Regulations and the Fostering National Minimum Standards.

You will have access to a range of other key documents including:

• Your service’s Statement of Purpose.
• Action for Children’s policies on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, Equality and Diversity Policy and Procedure, Safeguarding Policy, Behaviour Support Policy, Data Protection Policy.
• For complaints please either contact us, phone us on 0300 123 2112 (open 9am - 5pm, Monday to Friday) or email us at [email protected].
• You will also be familiarised with Action for Children’s Whistleblowing procedure.
• Our Children’s Guides (for fostering and short breaks). These must be provided to each child who comes to live with our carers or when visiting for short breaks.
• Action for Children’s foster carer training programme. You will be supported to book onto live sessions delivered in person and online, as well as some web-based courses. Your Action for Children Fostering service will send you the programme and links to book in’.
• Guidance and procedures for foster carers to help you keep children, yourself and your household safe. These include: the administration and recording of medication; safer care in foster homes; pet safety; health and safety; and pocket money and savings for children; and more. The guidance will be provided by your fostering social worker.
• Practical information about fostering finance and your insurance status.

Supervision

You will receive regular planned supervision and support.

Your Action for Children Fostering social worker will meet with you at least once a month (or once a quarter if you are providing limited short breaks only). The dates of these meetings, known as supervision, will be agreed with you by appointment in advance and they will usually be at your home. You’ll have a supervision agreement setting out the expectations and purpose of the arrangements. To make the best use of time, the agenda for supervision meetings will be clear and you will be able to prepare in advance. Records of supervision must be kept by your supervising social worker and shared with you promptly afterwards for you to review and sign.

Between supervision visits, you will also have regular phone and email contact with your supervising social worker.

Your supervising social worker will keep in touch with the social worker for the child in your care about all matters relating to the child.

[England Fostering NMS 21]

Out of Hours telephone support

This is provided by qualified social workers to all Action for Children carers from 5pm – 9am weeknights, all weekend and on public holidays. The duty team consists of one worker on call and a duty manager.

You will have received the telephone contact information for this service on approval from your Action for Children Fostering social worker and your service administrator.

Please call about any concern you have for a child’s safety or wellbeing, as well as to report any incident. There are certain events that will always require you to get in touch, such as a child going missing or being absent without your agreement.

You are also advised to contact the duty service if a child is unwell, sustains any injury or is involved in any incident with another child or person. You’re also advised to use the duty service if you have queries about medication, or if you need advice about a child’s family members/family time at the weekend.

If there is an emergency and an immediate threat to life or safety please call the emergency services on 999 and then report to Action for Children Fostering.

As an Action for Children Fostering carer, you may also call the Out of Hours duty team if you feel it would be helpful to check or discuss something you’re unsure about. And, should you find yourself saying or doing something as a carer that you subsequently feel worried about, it’s good to tell us straight away so that we are aware.

Support groups/foster carer team meetings

In addition to individual supervision and support, all carers with Action for Children Fostering have access to regular support group meetings with other foster carers in your area. These can be a useful source of practical information, as well as valuable and enjoyable peer support. Some meetings will include a themed discussion or workshop. Your team manager and supervising social worker will share a calendar of these meetings, some of which are in person and some online.

Specialist consultations

Action for Children Fostering works with therapeutic specialists with expertise in the needs of children who’ve lived through trauma. Your supervising social worker and you can together work with these specialists to develop individual plans to support a child. Consultations also include strategies for self-care and your own wellbeing, and sometimes work with the whole team around a child to ensure joined-up, therapeutic practice. Please ask your supervising social worker for more information.

Social events for children and carers

Action for Children Fostering organises regular social events that bring children together and give fostering families a chance to spend a day out together. This may be at a local attraction, an outdoor activity or just a shared meal. Your local service will take note of your preferences when planning events to suit the needs of the children and families involved.

Membership of the Fostering Network

As part of our support to you, Action for Children Fostering pays your membership of the Fostering Network, which provides advice services and information to foster carers nationwide. Through your membership of this network we can also arrange independent support for you if you should need it, for example if an allegation is made.

Planned breaks

When this is in the interests of a child and the sustainability of their foster home, Action for Children Fostering offers planned breaks to our carers. Planned breaks (formerly sometimes called ‘respite’) must be organised to offer the child a positive alternative experience and as natural an alternative as possible to being at home with you. For example, this could mean joining an adventure week away with school, staying with an approved back-up carer within your own family, or being supported by another foster family already familiar to the child.

As set out in your foster carer agreement, you will be eligible for a certain number of paid overnight breaks (usually 14 nights) a year. Should more breaks be required in specific circumstances to sustain a foster home for a child, Action for Children will negotiate with the child’s local authority for increased support.

[England Fostering NMS 15, 16, 21]

Put yourself in the place of a child who needs a foster home. They may be new to the care system or they may have waited long months for their social worker to find the right household. It’s our job at Action for Children Fostering to connect children who need us to ‘their’ best match of carers. That way, we hope they will enjoy a stable, loving home on which they can build a settled life and a positive future.

Your approval as a foster carer may be for children of a specific age range, for short-term or long-term care or for short breaks, and may have certain restrictions: for example, if you smoke, you will not be able to foster under-fives, children with certain health conditions and disabilities. As you know, your approval categories will be reviewed at intervals in full discussion with you.

When matching children and carers, we also take very seriously our responsibility to your own family and particularly your children. Your Action for Children Fostering social worker will meet with and listen to your own children on regular visits. Your children will also have access to training in safer care at an age-appropriate level. Your children’s views and needs must always be considered in any matching decisions.

Once you’re approved we will seek to share your profile and knowledge of your skills with the local authorities in your area, to help them in their search for homes for individual children. (At this stage we won’t share names or contact details). The process for matching and preparing to welcome a child is set out in Section 2.9 above. [Link back to 2.9]

You will not be expected to have all the knowledge and skills for every child’s care on day one – you will continuously gain knowledge, skills and experience through your role. A willingness to learn matters more than a long CV! If there is a specific additional skill you need to care for a child matched with you, we will provide access to the appropriate training.

When a child is coming to live with you, or stay for short breaks:

You should receive all the information you need to care for a child, including their care plan and placement plan, from the child’s local authority.

You should receive our support to contribute to the child’s plan, and to attend and support the child in their regular reviews.

If the child’s local authority has not provided any required information, we will chase them until they do.

You will have clear information on how to contact your supervising social worker, manager and our Out-Of-Hours duty service with Action for Children Fostering.

For any child in your care, you will also have contact information for the child’s social worker in the local authority; and the local authority’s duty service. These will be shared with you on the child’s placement plan and your supervising social worker with Action for Children Fostering will help to ensure effective communication with them.

Once a child has come to live with you, the aim will be for this to be their stable home for as long as possible within the terms of their plan and your approval range.

[England Fostering NMS 15]

In Section 2, we set out the key aspects of directly caring for a child. In this section we focus on the expectations on you as a foster carer working in a team of people around a child. As the person who spends by far the most time with the child, your insights and observations matter and your input is vital for building an accurate picture of the child’s experience and needs.

Remember that while we expect a high standard of care for a child from you, the whole service including social workers, managers and support staff, is held accountable to rigorous standards of monitoring and reporting, with the aim of keeping children safe and improving outcomes for them. This means that any evaluation of the care you’re giving is also an evaluation of the service we’re providing to support you.

Key expectations include:

Record keeping

Action for Children Fostering will require you to keep logs for the child in your care. As set out in Section 2, these are for the child primarily, but you must also upload them in a timely manner on our secure system so that we can share them as needed with the child’s social worker in the local authority. We expect you to write in a child-centred way and ideally write the logs in the form of letters to the child.

It’s always good to note the achievements of the child, any memorable occasions or fun times together, good times they’ve spent with their friends, any certificates or praise that they’ve had from school or out-of-school activities. It may be helpful also to note any significant conversation where the child’s development and growing understanding are demonstrated.

Keep the emphasis on what happened in factual terms. You may wish to share your opinions about events or observations about the child in your care: but opinions need to be clearly labelled as opinions and may be best kept for supervision discussions.

Record-keeping is also a vital task for accurate facts and safeguarding children. You will need to record also:

• All medication as prescribed and administered to the child;
• All health care appointments;
• All education appointments such as meetings for the child;
• The amount of pocket money given to the child each week;
• The amount of savings banked for the child each week;
• Any incidents, injuries or illnesses (see Section 2 and report to your Action for Children Fostering Social Worker);
• Any family time for the child in the week.

You will receive training on how to maintain logs for a child. Your Action for Children Fostering social worker and administrative colleagues will advise you on how to upload records and how to keep your digital records safe and secure.

Communication:

You’ll be in touch with your Action for Children Fostering social worker about the child in your care frequently.

You’ll also have a number of communications with the child’s own social worker in the local authority, their school, and any other workers supporting them.

• Keeping communication professional and positive is a key to effective fostering. It also models for the child how adults can work together effectively.
• Always keep language clear and as objective as possible.
• Respect difference, and avoid making assumptions.
• It is often worth checking with your Action for Children Fostering Social Worker before sending emails to the child’s social worker or other professionals.

In addition, in most circumstances you’ll have communications with the child’s own parents, grandparents or other family members.

• Good, calm and respectful relationships between them and you can help the child in your care significantly. Even if you know that a child in your care has experienced trauma in the care of a person in their family, keep your interactions polite and measured. The family will always matter to the child and your interactions need to respect this, and remain appropriate.
• Stick calmly to boundaries agreed in the child’s Plan and ask for help if in any doubt.
• Always report any concerns about family members to your Action for Children Fostering social worker, rather than getting into stressful interactions with individuals.
• Remember the child needs an emotionally safe space with you, and to witness conflict between you and their family could re-traumatise them.

Respecting the child’s privacy and confidentiality

As a member of a professional team around a child, we expect you to treat all information about a child confidentially.

• You must protect a child’s data (including emails, medical information, documents etc) with full compliance with the law and Action for Children’s data protection policies. We are always here to support you with use of our secure software and encryption of any emails you may need to send.
• We also expect you to protect children’s privacy in spoken communication, sharing personal details only with the child’s social worker and any other professionals who have been identified to you and who will need to have certain information to safeguard the child.
• You must ensure your use of social media is appropriate, uses strong privacy controls and protects the confidentiality and privacy of any child in your care.

Attendance at meetings for the child in your care

Your child may have several professionals working with them. Your attendance at meetings with the child’s local authority, school and possibly with therapeutic or healthcare providers will be expected. In some cases, you may need to attend multi-agency meetings with education, police and others. Some meetings are held online, and you will have support from us about how to join these. In all cases, you should advise your Action for Children Fostering social worker in advance of planned meetings. Your Action for Children Fostering social worker will attend as many of these meetings as possible with you and help you with preparing for them.

For children’s statutory reviews, sometimes called ‘child in care reviews’ or ‘looked-after child reviews’, you may be asked to submit a very brief report in advance. Again, your Action for Children Fostering social worker will support you with this.

As with any adult supporting children, it’s important that you have up-to-date training and development to meet your specific learning needs.

Action for Children Fostering provides a programme of training to offer you regular opportunities to learn and develop as a carer. Foster carers bring many skills and a wealth of experience and learning to their role, and their individual learning needs vary widely. We therefore try to balance the standard, required training with additional extended opportunities for those who wish to do more. We also seek to ensure that all carers, whatever their circumstances, can access the training in an equitable manner, through a variety of means that recognise different learning styles.

The required training is set out in your Induction Guide and your Training Programme. It must include:

• Induction
• Safeguarding and safer care
• Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
• Data Protection and Confidentiality
• Behaviour Support
• First Aid
• Administration, storage and recording of medication
• Introduction to therapeutic care.

In addition you will undertake Prevent training, and specialised modules on a wide range of skills as needed, ranging from Makaton sign language to therapeutic care.

Training is not necessarily classroom-style learning. There will also be:

• online courses that can be followed at the most convenient time for you;
• workshops or informal discussion groups;
• one-to-one study options with your Action for Children Fostering social worker;
• free resources that you can use however much you dislike formal learning, such as podcasts, video clips and magazine articles.

In your first year of fostering, as set out in your Induction Guide, you’ll be supported to complete your national Training, Support and Development standards portfolio TSD_standards_guidance_for_supervisors.pdf with your Action for Children Fostering Social Worker. This is an expectation for carers in all fostering organisations in England.

In households with more than one approved carer, we will seek to ensure that both (or all) carers are supported to achieve expected training, recognising that one carer may have longer working hours and may find this more challenging. Again it’s the job of your Action for Children Fostering service to find ways to help – including offering you voice recording options instead of the need to sit and type or write, and shared workshops where you can complete mandatory modules efficiently with support from the staff team. Your learning will be informed by your individual Learning and Development plan. [England Fostering NMS 20]

Rightly, the assessment process for foster carers is demanding and thorough, as we are asking you to care for vulnerable children. The child and the team supporting the child need to be confident that the child is safe and that their needs are being met.

Caring for a child can be incredibly rewarding, but children’s needs change over time and carers’ lives and households also evolve, as any family does.

It’s the job of Action for Children Fostering to ensure that you can work with the child’s plan, and that the skills and knowledge you bring to a child’s care can adapt to their changing needs. As households change over time, their suitability for fostering may also change. Changes in your capacity to care for a child can arise unexpectedly, as can events affecting other household members.

Within the Fostering Regulations and the Fostering National Minimum Standards in England, Note [replace for Scotland] , we will undertake a review of every approved carer’s suitability to continue fostering annually, and earlier if circumstances require this.

The review should be a two-way process in which you reflect on your strengths, your areas for development and your learning needs with us, while we consider with you how effectively you have been able to care for a child over the past year and whether we’ve given you the training and help you need.

Each year we’ll do the following:

• We’ll check routine things such as any updates to your home safety and insurance, car MOT and insurance certificates, and any changes to your record with the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS). We will also check your record with your local authority. All checks are with your knowledge and consent. Your own children will also be expected to undertake DBS checks once they turn 18. As you know, it’s important to tell us about any changes in the membership of your household, such as if you have a new partner.
• Following your initial health assessment before approval, we will also seek updated health reports at intervals to ensure that you are able to meet the demands of caring for a child. Remember that you’re not required to have perfect health! The important thing is that you are managing your health needs and working with your health practitioners, keeping a child’s needs fully in mind.
• With your agreement, we will also periodically check that your social media use remains appropriate for a professional person working with children and that you are rigorously protecting the confidentiality and online privacy of any child in your care.
• As noted in Section 2, we’ll visit unannounced at intervals, as required within the regulatory framework. This is not to find out whether you’ve vacuumed your carpets! It’s about seeking assurance that a child living or staying with you can expect the same predictable and loving home, whether our visit is expected or not.
• We’ll ask the child in your care about how life is, but won’t ever pressure them into speaking with us if they decline.
• We’ll look at how you’ve managed to keep abreast of training and informal learning, as well as the way you’ve used supervision and support. Again, we do not expect carers to be perfectly informed from day one. The important characteristic is a willingness to learn, a drive to be curious, learn more and reflect on experience.

>There will be reports including feedback from several people. The reports will include:

• your own self-evaluation;
• a report by your supervising social worker;
• feedback from the child in your care and any other child you’ve cared for in the last year;
• feedback from their social worker(s) and other professionals where appropriate;
• feedback from your own children about their experience in a family that fosters;
• feedback from a child’s family members where possible.

You will also have support to complete a personal development plan exploring what learning you’d like to gain next, and how to further your fostering role.

Based on the evidence and these reports, there will be a recommendation in your annual review report for either continued approval, deferment while a specific identified action is taken or, in certain circumstances, deregistration. However, because of our open and transparent approach, we would always be clear with you at an earlier stage if we felt there was a problem to address. We would always work to resolve problems through supervision first.

The Agency Decision Maker, a senior manager with extensive fostering experience, will determine the outcome of your review within a regulatory time scale and once we know the decision we’ll share it with you immediately.

[England Fostering NMS 13, 14, 19, 20]

Fostering a child who has lived through trauma can be challenging. If difficulties arise, Action for Children must always prioritise children’s safety and welfare. We also have a duty of care to you and your family. In such cases, there is a range of support available to you.

The best way to protect the safety of a child, you and your family members is to reduce the risk of allegations or concerns arising. As approved foster carers, your training and supervision will help you to minimise those risks. Key steps include:

• a detailed and child-specific safer care plan, based on a rigorous assessment of risk and drawn up with your Action for Children Fostering social worker.
• clear boundaries and routines
• Accurate, prompt record keeping, enabling you and your Action for Children Fostering social worker to notice any emerging patterns or concerns.

A further way to keep children and yourself and family safe is through the quality of your relationships. Regular, open conversations, transparent actions and your predictability can help keep a child to feel secure.

Allegations

Children, family members or others may make an allegation against a foster carer. An allegation is a comment, report or statement that suggests a carer has

• harmed, or is suspected to have harmed, a child - for example through neglect or abuse; or
• committed a criminal act relevant to a child; or
• behaved in a way that indicates they may pose a risk to children; or
• acted in such a way as to cause concern about their suitability to work with children.

The allegation could also be about another member of a foster carer’s household/support network.

While most carers understandably feel worried by the idea of allegations, they are a common experience: in the most recent year for which records are available there were just over 3000 allegations against foster carers in England, affecting about one in 20 fostering households (Ofsted).

All allegations of harm must be investigated as quickly and thoroughly as possible and in line with statutory guidance. As a fostering service, our duty is to report all allegations promptly to statutory services, to safeguard children. Equally, our duty is to ensure support for both the person making the allegation and the person or persons who are the subject of the allegation, to ensure process is followed as fairly, swiftly and transparently as possible.

If you or a member of your household are the subject of an allegation of harm, Action for Children Fostering in England will refer the matter to the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) immediately in line with statutory guidance. The LADO will be informed about any allegation, however minor it may appear. You will be informed that this has been done.

Allegations must be investigated within a statutory process. In England, if harm is alleged, the LADO convenes a strategy discussion including, as a minimum, the local authority, police and health practitioners. This may result in a joint (‘multi-agency’) investigation involving the local authority, police and other agencies, under section 47 of the Children Act 1989.

Detail of the statutory procedures in England are set out in the government’s Working Together to Safeguard Children (2026). [Link to section 5 Where you can find out more].

Investigations will consider the circumstances, whether there was a pattern of concerns, and any history of similar allegations. A child may be considered to have been harmed whether or not criminal thresholds are met.

Allegations investigated within this statutory multiagency process will be found to be substantiated, unsubstantiated or unfounded. Where allegations are substantiated and a child has been harmed or appears to have been harmed, a carer is likely to be found unsuitable to foster.

In many cases, when the LADO receives a referral, they will conclude that there is no role for the local authority and that the matter should be investigated by the fostering service instead, under its internal processes. The child’s views will be heard and documented and the child’s local authority social worker is likely to play a role in this.

If the LADO directs Action for Children Fostering to investigate, we will explore with the carer what happened, any differing accounts, what training had been available, what factors were involved, and how to move forward.

We will complete a report with an action plan and analysis of the learning for all. The report will be sent to the LADO and also considered by Action for Children Fostering, in a full review of the fostering household at the independent Panel, which will make a recommendation. The Agency Decision Maker will determine whether a carer remains suitable to foster, whether their return to fostering should be deferred pending specific action, or whether they should be deregistered.

Action for Children Fostering appreciates how distressing it can be for carers to experience allegations. As with all aspects of children’s care, the priority must be on safeguarding. We will rigorously follow process and will keep affected carers informed as much as possible at each stage.

If a child is currently in your care, decisions must be made with the local authority about whether the child can stay with you safely while investigations take place. Decisions should be sensitive and child-focused.

• Carers have the right to an independent social worker to support them, and advocate for them. An independent social worker will be sourced through the Fostering Network, or other Union, with the cost borne by Action for Children.
• Carers may also wish to access a solicitor.
• Action for Children will ensure that carers who are in this position are kept informed of all their rights and options, and the nature of independent support.
• If subject to an investigation and put ‘on hold’ from fostering during the process, a foster carer may be eligible for a proportion of their fee from Action for Children between the date of going ‘on hold’ and the date of the Agency Decision Maker’s determination.

If a foster carer is deemed to have harmed a child, is deregistered and is considered unsuitable to work with children, Action for Children is obliged to refer the case to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

If a carer resigns but the Agency Decision Maker considers that they harmed a child and would have been deregistered if they had not resigned, this will be recorded on file and will prevent another fostering agency from approving them. They will be informed in writing of this outcome. In such cases they will also be referred to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Children’s views will be taken into account when investigations take place and all records of allegations are held on file.

The regulator (in England, Ofsted) is also informed about all LADO referrals, child protection investigations and their outcomes, and DBS referrals.

Ofsted data show that in England, after LADO referral and investigation, about half of allegations against foster carers lead to no further action. Of the remainder, most result in a period of monitoring and a return to panel with a review of carers’ suitability to foster. The priority must always be to ensure children are safe.

Your training with Action for Children will provide further information on allegations, how you can protect yourself and your household and how you can reduce the risk of an allegation against you or a family member.

Standards of Care Concerns

Within any fostering household, difficulties can arise in which the quality of care can be reduced, temporarily or permanently. In such cases, the quality of care may be falling short of the sensitive, warm and loving standard that is expected.

Standards of Care concerns are separate from allegations of harm as they don’t meet the threshold for harm. Their investigation is usually by the fostering service internally, although the child’s local authority will need to be kept informed, will be consulted, and will be advised of the outcome.

A carer’s Action for Children Fostering social worker will initially seek to support the carer with developing their skills through supervision, reflection, extra visits and additional training if needed. Where possible this will be reported within the annual review report.

If these approaches do not help, a Standards of Care Concerns investigation will take place and a review may be brought forward. A report will be presented to Panel, with a recommendation either to defer re-approval pending planned work and action, or to deregister the carer. Action for Children Fostering will provide carers with clear written guidance about the basis on which the Independent Panel will make its recommendations.

In many cases, a period of extra training can help, along with support to deal with issues affecting a carer’s ability to support the child. With reflection, supervision and (where appropriate) counselling or other help, many carers make successful returns to fostering.

If you are dissatisfied with the Agency Decision Maker’s determination, you can object and seek to have the case considered by the national fostering Independent Review Mechanism in England. You must write to Action for Children within 28 days of receiving the Agency Decision Maker’s letter, which sets out the procedure to follow.

[England Fostering NMS 22]

Complaints

Children, their families and others may make complaints against a foster carer or against the fostering service. Complaints are not allegations as they do not reach the threshold of harm, or suspicions of harm, to a child. Rather, they are about aspects of daily life that the child may be dissatisfied with, such as the food preferences in the foster home or tensions in relationships with another household member. Complaints will always be investigated promptly and in line with statutory requirements and Action for Children Fostering’s Complaints Policy and Procedure [link to Complaints policy]. Action for Children foster carers are also entitled to complain under the Complaints Policy.

[England Fostering NMS 21]

Resignation

Action for Children Fostering will always hope to work with you through difficulties.

However, if you decide that it is time for you to step down from fostering, you have the right to resign. Talk to us, before putting anything in writing, because once you have resigned the regulations prevent you from retracting this and we have to implement your resignation after 28 days.

We also respect that family life can change and that you may face additional demands on your time and your physical and emotional capacity. If you decide you are unable to continue fostering we will understand and accept this. However, we ask that you discuss the matter with us as far ahead as possible so that we are able to work with the child’s local authority to support the child in a planned, respectful and successful transition to a new carer matched to their needs.

At Action for Children Fostering, we never allow a child to be made homeless in an unplanned or reactive way. Children should be able to feel safe and included. They should benefit from a team around them, including, in some cases, alternative carers who they know and who can step in to provide temporary support.

Wherever possible, each child should be supported to understand in a safe way that they are never to blame if it becomes essential for them to move. While sometimes difficulties can become insurmountable, we will strongly encourage our carers to work with the service to support any child with positive transitions and respectful, loving care from which they can move on with good memories and lastingly positive relationships.

[England Fostering NMS 31]

Just as your extended family and you may help each other out when needed, it may be possible for one or more of your extended family to help with your care of a child. If so, we are most grateful for the support they can bring. A key advantage of your family/friends being back-up carers is that the child in your care experiences family support that feels like normal life, without having to move somewhere else temporarily or to stay with unfamiliar carers, if or when you need help.

If you have a family member or members (adult sons/daughters; grandparent; aunt or uncle) or established friends who are interested in helping you and willing to do so, please tell us. We can undertake a simple, short set of checks, including DBS certification, to ensure safety and their suitability to work with a child. We’ll meet, seek their views and understanding, and ensure they are able to meet a child’s needs. We will provide training in safeguarding and safer care as you’d expect. And with the agreement of the child’s local authority, you can work directly with your family member(s) to provide cover for short periods.

Back-up carers will have a chance to give us their feedback and contribute to reviews.

Naturally, they will receive a fee while they are caring for a child too.