Wider family matters

Chapter 6: Local Authority Children's Services: Support and Protection

Introduction

The Children Act 2004 requires all Local Authorities in England to appoint a director with responsibility for services to children, including the planning and delivery of both education and social services. As a consequence, Local Authorities have reorganised their services, and most have a Children's Services Department. They are responsible for providing statutory services to children in need and their families, for safeguarding children, for looking after children who need to live apart from their parents and for providing education services.

Children in need assessments and services

I am finding it very difficult to cope with bringing up my younger brother. Are Children's Services obliged to help me?
Children's Services have a responsibility under Section 17 of the Children Act 1989 to:

"promote the upbringing of children in need by their families by providing a range and level of services appropriate to those children's needs".

The Children Act 1989 is clear that the Local Authority has a duty to provide support services to children in need and their families and carers. Your Local Authority has to publish information about the services it provides and you should be able to get a copy of this. However, each Local Authority can decide its priorities. Financial constraints mean that they are not able to meet everybody's requests for help.

The range of services that the authority may provide includes:

• Day care including family centres.
• Help in your home.
• Specialist therapeutic services.
• Parenting education.
• Counselling, advice and guidance.
• Promoting contact for children living away from their family.
• Respite care.
• Accommodation.
• Practical assistance such as equipment, food in emergencies, and exceptionally, cash.

How can I get the help I need and what is involved in an assessment?
The first step is to ask the Local Authority for a 'children in need' assessment. We recommend you set out in writing why the child you are caring for requires extra support, and what help is necessary for you to meet the child's needs.

We have written a specimen letter which you may like to use when asking for support from Children's Services - see Appendix A.

Children's Services should respond to you within 24 hours to a request for help. There are then two kinds of children in need assessments they can undertake:

• initial assessment to be completed within seven working days; and possibly followed by
• a core assessment to be completed within 35 working days maximum.

The assessment should look at three aspects of the child's life:

• the child's developmental needs;
• the parenting/carer capacity; and
• the family and environmental factors.

It should look at the needs of your family as a whole and you should be involved in every stage of the process.

A social worker will gather information from yourself, the child you are raising and other people involved in his/her life, such as his/her birth parents, the school, GP, close friends and any other relevant person.

Once the assessment is completed, Children's Services should decide whether or not to provide services to meet the identified needs and draw up an action plan. It may be agreed that support will be provided but the Local Authority is not obliged to provide such assistance. However, if there is a clear risk that your family situation may break down, they have a particular responsibility to try and keep the child within the family.

My younger sister, who I am bringing up, is disabled. Can I insist on help from Children's Services?

If the child is disabled, she will automatically be regarded as a child in need and should have an assessment.

You may also be entitled to a ‘direct payment' if you have parental responsibility for your sister. This means that Children's Services give you the money to buy the services and equipment you think are most needed. If s/he is disabled and aged 16 or 17, s/he may be entitled to her own direct payment.

Child protection and the role of carers

The child I am looking after is the subject of child protection procedures. What is my role?
Many relatives who ring Family Rights Group's advice line have taken on the care of children following investigations into child abuse involving one or both of the child's parents. They are often uncertain about the Local Authority's responsibilities and where they fit into the picture. Many feel excluded from the enquiries and are not told of their rights. However statutory guidance sets out how family members should be involved and kept informed about what is going on . We have written in Chapter 2 about how you should be treated. The official guidance states that those attending conferences can include family members, including the wider family. The Guidance provides further details about how the professionals should prepare family members for attending conferences.

Mr King was concerned about her grandchildren aged six and eight. He knew his daughter, Fay, their mother, was a heroin addict and that she was staying out overnight, leaving the two children to feed themselves and get to bed. She was also clearly under the influence of drugs while looking after the children. Mr King heard from a friend of Fay's that Children's Services were holding a case conference and had told Fay that they were likely to be fostering the children. Mr King went to see them immediately and offered himself as their carer. The social worker thanked him very much but said that what would be most helpful in the immediate future would be if he would attend and contribute to the case conference in two days time. She explained that information would be shared between the agencies and then decisions would be made about how to keep the children safe. If fostering were the preferred option, then Children's Services would be delighted to assess Mr King as a possible carer.

In the case above, Children's Services were rightly involving the extended family in the form of Mr King who was the grandfather, and this was likely to be in the interests of the children.

Children's Services take the lead in investigating whether a child is suffering or is likely to suffer "significant harm". There is no exact definition of significant harm but it can involve physical, emotional or sexual abuse, or neglect, or a combination of these. Child protection procedures cover the whole process from what happens when a report of possible or actual abuse is received, through the investigation, to the decisions about how to keep the child safe, and the actions to make sure that happens.

Under the guidance , Children's Services should speak to all the other professionals who know the child or family, and to the relevant family members and should normally see and speak to the child. Housing, education, relevant health professionals, the police, nursery or school, the voluntary sector, service users and carers are all expected to co-operate and share information. The safety of the child in these circumstances has to take precedence over considerations of confidentiality.

If you have had extensive involvement with the child and their immediate family, Children's Services should consult with you and keep you informed as to what is happening. Exactly how far the investigations go will depend on the seriousness of the situation. Some investigations do not go further than an initial enquiry because the concerns are not substantiated. Sometimes Children's Services think there have been grounds for concern but that the circumstances have changed sufficiently for the child to now be safe. For example, the single dad has now split up from his girlfriend who was misusing drugs. In other instances Children's Services will decide to call a case conference.

In whatever way the situation develops, Children's Services should be paying attention to the family's support needs, including those of the person who is now caring for the child. Help for the family should not depend on there being abuse and/or neglect. Unfortunately, because there are pressures on scarce resources, it can sometimes be difficult for the family and carer to get the support that they need prior to problems escalating into a crisis.

Case conferences

I have been invited to a case conference about my younger sister who I am looking after. I am very nervous about attending. What is it about and is there anyone to support me beforehand?
A case conference is a meeting of professionals from a range of agencies. Family members should be included unless there are worries about violence, intimidation or concerns connected with a possible criminal prosecution. Sometimes it is decided not to have all the family members at the same time, especially if a member of the family is an alleged abuser or if there is a lot of conflict between members of the family. Your sister may attend if old enough to understand what is going on, and arrangements can be made for her to have an advocate and to be well supported.

An initial case conference is held early on when there are concerns about a child's safety and a Local Authority is investigating these concerns working with other relevant agencies including the police. A review case conference is held three months after the first one and then at least every six months thereafter when a child is subject to a child protection plan.

The chair of the conference should meet you in advance. He or she should tell you the purpose of the conference, the time and place, who else will be there, and how long it will last. You can bring a friend, supporter or advocate to help you. If you and/or the child would like an interpreter this should be arranged by Children's Services. You can ask if it is possible to have copies of reports that are being presented in advance. You can also ask for someone to explain anything in the reports you do not understand.

If you and/or the child prefer not to attend but you want your views relayed through someone else or in writing, this can also be arranged.

Everyone should be welcomed and introductions made. Then reports should be presented and information shared. This can take quite a time if there are a lot of people. An initial child protection conference involves information being shared and weighed up about the child's needs and the parents'/carers' ability to respond to the child's needs. The conference then has to decide whether or not:

• the child has suffered ill treatment or damage to their health or development as a result of physical, emotional or sexual abuse or neglect and that further harm is likely; or
• the child is likely in the future to suffer ill treatment or damage to their health or development on the above grounds.

If the conference decides that there is a continuing risk to the child, it will draw up an outline child protection plan as to how the child will be kept safe in the future and how his/her health and development needs will be met. The plan will include how to support the family, provided this is thought to be in the best interests of the child. The conference will appoint a key worker and a core group of professionals who will make sure all aspects of an assessment are completed, develop the child protection plan in more detail and make sure it is put into action.

The child protection plan is the core document stating how a child who is at risk will be kept safe.

Family group conferences

Is a family group conference a child protection conference under another name?
No, they are not the same and have quite different origins.

Child protection conferences are convened and run by Children's Services and are part of the framework for safeguarding children as outlined above. Although family members may attend, it is the professionals who are responsible for making decisions at the meeting.

Family group conferences are meetings at which the family members are the main decision makers, building upon the family's knowledge, strengths and resources to draw up a plan to safeguard the child. Family group conferences originated in New Zealand, in response to the concern from indigenous population about the number and type of placements of Maori children within state care. Family group conferences draw upon the strengths of the child's community, culture and family, and are now being run in many localities in England and Wales. They are convened by an independent co-ordinator who helps the child, family members and any other significant adults in the child's life to prepare for the meeting. At the start of the meeting the referring organisation, normally Children's Services, sets out what the problem is, whether there are any non-negotiable factors about the child's care that the family needs to address, and what support services are available. The child, family and friends then produce their plan for the child in private before presenting it to the professionals and discussing it with them. The Agencies should then support the family's plan, as long as it will keep the child safe.

Family group conferences do not replace the need for child protection conferences but, in some circumstances, may be used to flesh out the child protection plan in more detail. They can also be used in a wide range of other circumstances. They may be used to make plans for children in need and looked-after children, in youth justice and in education when a child is truanting or at risk of exclusion. They can be very effective ways of helping identify potential family carers if a child cannot live with his/her parents. They can help potential or actual carers to explore what assistance they need for the placement to work for them and the child.

If Children's Services are involved with your family, you can propose that you have a family group conference. Some (although by no means all) Children's Services departments run or fund family group conference projects as part of their child protection procedures. The government sees them as a positive way of working with families.

Here is an example of what can happen as a result of a family group conference:

Robbie was a 5-month old baby from a traveller family who had suffered serious non-accidental injuries on three separate occasions. The injuries could only have been caused by his mother, step-father or maternal grandmother who had also made serious threats to social work staff. Robbie was placed in foster care on an interim care order and all the assessments agreed that he couldn't safely return home. The social worker referred his case for a family group conference. At the family group conference, from which his mother, maternal granmother and step-father were excluded, Children's Services and Robbie's paediatrician explained to his wider family the extend of his injuries. They accepted it would be unsafe for him to return home, but were keen that he should continue to live within his famliy and his culture. They identified an aunt and uncle who lived on a permanent site who they felt would make excellent carers. They were assessed and Robbie is now thriving in their care.

Family Rights Group produces publications on famly group conferencings and there is a family group conference section on the website that contains information and documents that you can download.

Concerns about children living elsewhere

I have serious concerns about the well-being of my grandchild who is living wiht her aunt. How can I be taken seriously?
This is a problem regularly raised by callers to Family Rights Group's advice line. Relatives in our grandparents' survey also told us about times when they had raised concerns about the welfare of a child but had been ignored, or the situation was left by the professionals until it became even more serious.

If you find your concerns are not being heard, we suggest the following:

If you think the child is in immediate danger:

• Contact the police on 999.

If you are concerned but think the child is not in immediate danger, you could do one or more of the following:

• Contact the NSPCC national helpline and/or Family Rights Group's advice line. They can give you advice on who to speak to, and how to put the information across effectively. The NSPCC can also be asked to make a referral on your behalf.
• Talk to another professional you trust, for example, your GP, health visitor or a head teacher, about your concerns. They may also be willing to make a referral for you to Children's Services.
• Set out your concerns in writing or approach Children's Services and ask for a meeting to talk these through. You may wish to take a friend or another relative as a supporter who can take notes of the meeting.
• If Children's Services take no further action and you remain concerned, write to the director setting out your concerns and asking for an explanation in writing for the lack of action. You may also wish to consider making a complaint.

Further legal orders

In Chapters 4 and 5 we described many of the orders that can apply to a child you are caring for. There are three further orders you may need to know about, as they have implications for you if you are already a carer or are thinking of becoming a carer. In relation to each of the orders below, if you are the child's carer or prospective carer, you are likely to need legal advice as to whether to become involved in court proceedings as a ‘party'.

If you become a ‘party', you can attend court and speak. If you have parental responsibility you will automatically be a party, and you may be able to get help with your legal fees. If you are not a party and would like to be, you need to ask the court's permission. It is likely to agree if your case seems reasonable.

Chapter 7 tells you more about how to find a suitably qualified solicitor.

Emergency protection orders

If Children's Services think a child is in immediate danger and needs to be made safe straightaway, there are a number of steps that can be taken:

• The person who is believed to be the cause of danger can agree to leave the home where the child is living, at least while enquiries are carried out. The Local Authority can help this person find other accommodation.
• The parent or carer can agree to the child moving to ‘voluntary accommodation' with the local authority.
• The Local Authority can ask a magistrate for an emergency protection order(EPO). This gives them limited parental responsibility including the right to:

1. take the child into care;
2. stop the child from returning to his/her home; and
3. insist on seeing the child when this has been refused by someone with parental responsibility.

• Occasionally the Local Authority asks the police to take the child into police protection (72 hours maximum). The accommodation is then provided by Children's Services.

An EPO lasts up to eight days and can be extended by court for a further seven days. Children's Services then need to decide whether or not to start care proceedings.

Supervision and care orders

The Local Authority can ask the court to make a supervision or care order. The court can only make such an order if it is satisfied:

• that the child is suffering or is likely to suffer significant harm; and
• that the harm or likely harm is due to:
  
  
• the care given to the child, or likely to be given if an order is not made, and that this is not what one would expect of a reasonable parent; or
• the child being beyond parental control.

It also has to pay regard to ‘the welfare checklist' and be satisfied that a particular order is what is best for the child. The court will often be helped to do this through a report prepared by a court welfare officer or social worker. Details of the welfare checklist are in Table B at the end of chapter 5.

Care orders are used to protect the child in serious situations. Usually an interim care order is made pending a full court hearing. With an interim or full care order the Local Authority shares parental responsibility with the parents, but it is the Local Authority that can decide what is to happen to the child, and where the child can live.

With a supervision order the child normally does not have to move house but s/he now has a supervisor, usually a social worker, who has the duty to:

• advise, assist and befriend the child;
• put the order into effect (the supervisor can make a range of directions); and
• consider returning to court if the order is not complied with.

If an order is breached the only sanction is for the Local Authority to return to court and ask for a care order. A supervision order initially lasts up to a year but can be extended for up to a total of three years.

For further information about Local Authority Children's Services and their responsibilities towards children in need, looked-after children and child protection, contact Family Rights Group or other organisations,  such as those listed under Child Protection and Bullying.

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