To consider evidence as part of the Board’s inquiry into Kinship Care
Minutes:
The Head of Scrutiny and Member Development submitted a report which presented evidence as part of the Board’s inquiry into Kinship Care.
The following information was appended to the report:
- Update on the development of services and support to kinship carers in Leeds
- Kinship Care Family and Friends Policy
- Kinship Care Guide for England
- Forgotten Children, Children growing up in Kinship Care (Grandparents Plus)
- Relative Experience, Issues and Challenges for Kinship Carers (Grandparents Plus / Family and Parenting Institute / Family Lives)
- Staying Put (The Fostering Network)
- Kinship Care case studies
- Kinship Care and Special Guardianship newsletter (Autumn-Winter 2014).
The following representatives attended the meeting:
- Jane Dowson, Deputy Executive Board Member (Children and Families)
- Steve Walker, Deputy Director of Children’s Services (Safeguarding, Specialist and Targeted Services)
- Sarah Johal, Assistant Head of Service (Looked After Children)
- Val Hales, Team Manager (Fostering and Adoption)
- Wendy Sanderson, Team Manager (Kinship Care Team)
- Stephen Boorman, Section Head, Legal Services
- David Cousins, Grandparents Association
- Bridget Lindley, Family Rights Group
- Andrew Walker, The Fostering Network
- Ann Pemberton, Home Start Leeds
- Ann Russell, Kinship Carer.
The key areas of discussion were:
· An explanation regarding the legal framework, particularly the Children Act 1989.
· Formal and informal arrangements, special guardianship and child arrangement orders.
· Main reasons why children become looked after; parents go to prison, mental health issues, alcohol and substance misuse and child neglect.
· Advantages to kinship care, particularly that the child had an existing relationship with the carer. Research indicated that outcomes were slightly better than those in foster care / unrelated care.
· Impact on sibling arrangements – often siblings stayed together under kinship care arrangements.
· Kinship care retained family history and provided greater stability.
· The need to develop work with schools as existing work with clusters was considered inconsistent.
· Complex family arrangements and challenges associated with children placed abroad.
The Scrutiny Board watched a 5 minute Youtube case study video by Grandparents Plus ‘Tony and Christine’s story – Keep families together’.
The Chair then invited kinship carers in attendance to share their experiences regarding kinship care and the support arrangements in place.
Other key points discussed were:
· Greater support needed to help with children’s emotional and behavioural issues.
· The need to develop and publicise the range of support available, particularly ensuring that services were easily accessible.
· The need to develop links with the mediation service to support breakdowns in kinship care arrangements.
· Data gathered in relation to kinship care – often older carers with health issues and limited support network.
· Development of family and friends policy – emphasis on early support was extremely important.
· Role of the Young Carers Group.
· ‘Mockingbird model’ being developed – pilot project which provided kinship support.
· Confirmation that support for transition from primary to secondary school was undertaken by Targeted Adolescent Mental Health Service (TAMHS) – a city-wide service available across all schools.
· Clarification sought whether suitable and timely support was available via Child Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) and TAMHS? The Scrutiny Board was advised that this area could be improved.
· Work being undertaken by NSPCC and University of Bristol regarding unification with birth families.
The Chair thanked representatives for their attendance.
RESOLVED – That the above issues be incorporated into the Board’s final inquiry report.
(Councillor K Renshaw left the meeting at 12 noon and Councillor S McKenna at 12.05pm during the consideration of this item.)
Supporting documents: