Advice on kinship carers rules?

[Angel123]

Advice please
Does anyone know the rules for what kinship carers are aloud to do when they have your child in their care ? Are they aloud to seek out information on the child's mother and partner are they aloud to breech confidentiality of the child's birth mother and relate information back to the child that they where specifically told by social services that they where not aloud to do this ...but they went and done it anyway?

Screenshot_20220103-033849_Facebook.jpg (385.31 KiB) Viewed 1293 times

Screenshot_20220103-033849_Facebook.jpg (385.31 KiB) Viewed 1293 times

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear Angel123

Welcome to the parents’ discussion forum and thank you for your post.

My name is Suzie, online adviser at Family Rights Group. In you post you question what rules kinship carers must follow if they have someone’s child in their care. You said the kinship carers as foster carers have been told by children’s services (the new name for social services) not to search out information but did so anyway.

As a foster carer the person should as you say work with children’s services whilst caring for a child or children and it is children’s services who can say what happens with the children. However, if anyone believes that a child may be at risk of harm then they are able to make a referral to children’s services) about their concern.

You have stated that the kinship carer in question sought out information relating to your partner and informed children’s services but, in your view, the kinship carer only received a slap on the wrist. Has the kinship carer after one incident repeated the same behaviour? It is for children’s services to decide whether the kinship carer is working well as a foster carer or not. They can take steps to remove a child if they consider the foster carer is not adhering to their requests and/or placing a child at risk.

The information disclosed, from what you say in your post relate to your partner. I am not clear how your confidentiality as the birth mother was breached. If the information was already in the public domain, I do not know if it would still be a breach of privacy (it is not within the remit of our service to advise on this). Individuals have a right to privacy and a breach of this (an invasion of privacy). If you believe that there has been a breach of your privacy, then you may want to obtain advice from a solicitor about this.

It appears that children’s services dealt with any concerns that you raised with them about the kinship carer looking for information.

I hope this helps.

Best wishes

Suzie

[Bigmama1986]

hi I just need some advice my contact is 4 times a week but carer wants to put my child in nursery on a day of contact and both parents said no and contact center can not facilitate to move days around so I went to see kids and guess what children were not there barring in mind it's not a legal requirement for nursery it is to see me I have approx 35 contacts missed due to carer not turning up. Also my child is always got bruises but in places that are safegaurding issue staff at center have rang careline with all these concerns as have I but it just keeps getting brushed aside I've sent police twice to carers as I'm not having it because the same excuse is it's from swing or slide or she does not know how he got them but would of cried when he hurt himself this is a classic sign of neglect through poor Supervison also he lost lots of weight and had been put on weight gain milk the babies have been moved to 3 diffrent placements while she just swanking of on holidays two since January so placements breaking down and this has had a impact on my children's emotional health and wellbeing and she had no consideration about my child's emotional health and wellbeing and this case has just been dragged on for nearly 12 months and judge has ordered another assment because social worker one shambolic and time frames not getting met it's driving me mad and I feel annoyed that carer and SW are not adhering to orders and simply getting away with it
My kids remove is simply because my kids dad and I have perviouse DV in relationship five years ago and I got back with him and had 2 babies with him and no one had any concerns regarding my children so much so they were taken my kids of CPP but they found out that I'd been with him for 2 years and they didn't know can I have some advice please

[Bigmama1986]

also my SW has been found from social work of England failing to safeguard my child and miss conduct he has changed old paper added it to New one but changed details and names and added a black eye on to the paperwork good job I had all paper work otherwise I would not of been able to explain it how ss are allowed to do what ever they want and never be challenged it's just a joke really is carers simply do as they want and please and I've really had enough dad has not drank for 60 days and I have gone on to do L2 DV course L2 safegaurding course L2 child protection course L2 risk assment course L2 careing for children L2 common illness
parenting course I've also done child development understand children's mental health understanding teen-agers brain SW interventions course and many more so I know what I'm saying about bruising and looking after my child people's but no is listening

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear BigMama1986

Welcome back to the parents’ board and thank you for your post. I am sorry to hear of the difficulties that you and your family are experiencing and the distress this is causing you.

In this post you note your concerns about:

• Contact with your children
• Bruising to your child while in foster care – and professional responses to this
• The length and impact of the care proceedings
• The behaviour of the social worker including allegedly falsifying documents

i. I am sorry to hear that contact with your children has been disrupted so often and that there has been a recent issue where your contact did not happen as it conflicted with your child now attending nursery on this day. You and your child’s father both objected to this change to the arrangements at the time.

There are a couple of things you can do about these contact problems.

Firstly, let your solicitor know so that they can raise this with the local authority legal team and the court, if that is necessary.

Secondly, ask the social worker to confirm the current contact plan in writing and to tell you what arrangements have been to make up for the recent missed session and for future sessions if there is a conflict with the dates due to your son attending nursery now. Ask the social worker to tell you how this is being resolved so that you continue to have the regular time with your child you are meant to have. You are right that it is not a legal requirement for a child to attend nursery but it can be beneficial for them so ideally they should be able to enjoy their time with their parent and go to nursery. It should be possible to come up with a solution to this. If the social worker does not respond or their response is not satisfactory then you should forward to their team manager and the Independent Reviewing Officer and ask that they intervene to resolve. If necessary you can make a complaint.

You can find out more about how contact with children in care and how it must be reviewed here.

ii. You described your worries about your child sustaining bruises in your earlier post on the 6th May. Please can you look back on my response on 9th May here where I gave detailed advice about what you can do. Our advice here is also relevant to your situation. I hope that you will find the advice helpful and that your concerns are properly addressed. As you have a solicitor representing you in the court proceedings you should make sure that you keep them informed and seek their legal advice about this issue too .

iii. Your care proceedings have been going on for over a year which is longer than the recommended timescale and this is understandably taking its toll on you. You explain that the court directed that a new assessment be completed as the previous one was inadequate. I can see how frustrating this is but of course it is essential for the children and for you that the court has the best information on which to make its decisions. You have been very proactive in doing child-related courses to boost your parenting skills and knowledge and your children’s father is not drinking at the moment so you are both making changes during this time.

iv. You describe how Social Work England has made findings against the social worker; you may want to refer to their website information about what happens after an investigation in find out more. Again do discuss with your solicitor if/how this impacts on the information provided to the court.

I hope this helps.

Best wishes

Suzie