The College of Social Work has issued more guidance on what adoption and fostering social workers are expected to know under the Professional Capabilities Framework (PCF). The guidance, which applies to all social workers in England from the newly qualified to those in strategic management, provides further information on what the PCF should mean in practice to adoption and fostering social workers. “We hope all social workers working in fostering and adoption will use these new statements to hone their professional strengths and identify and address their development needs,” said Anne Mercer, professional advisor at the College of Social Work. The Additional Statements for Social Workers in Fostering and Adoption document says adoption and fostering social workers should “recognise and manage appropriately the range of values that foster carers and adopters may have”. It also says they should “take account of the significance of diversity and discrimination in the history of many fostered and adopted children and are able to consider the impact on children of living with families that may be very different from their birth family”. The 23-page document also urges strategic managers in adoption and fostering to “promote a workforce (including foster carers) that values learning and development”. Source: http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2014/06/09/college-sets-expectations-adoption-fostering-social-workers/#.U5rJ9_ldU1Z Neglect is the most common form of child abuse, affecting as many as 1 in 10 children. Yet the law on child neglect is out of date. The law on child neglect doesn’t cover emotional neglect and creates confusion which stops police officers and social workers from working together. >> Support the campaign to protect children from emotional abuse What's the latest news? An update to the law to make emotional abuse illegal has been included in the recent Queen's Speech. This means the Government are going to do what we've been campaigning for - which is great news. The Government have published the Serious Crime Bill which includes the update to the law. To keep up to date with the latest news, sign up for updates. Why does the law need updating?
Read our take on the media coverage of the campaign and some questions answered in or blog: Why we should talk about child abuse, and not about Cinderella Source: http://www.actionforchildren.org.uk/campaigns/tackling-child-neglect/changing-the-law Our sister charity, Community Family Care, is looking for a Family Support Worker (Maternity Cover Contract) to work full-time in its Staunton office in Gloucestershire. Salary is £14,143 – £25,000, dependent upon experience/ qualifications. Click here to visit the Community Family Care website for more information about this role. Source: http://www.communityfostercare.co.uk/news/190/work-for-community-family-care-as-a-family-support-worker-14k-25k A Norfolk reader sends me photographs of an advertisement placed on the back of local buses by Norfolk and Suffolk county councils. “New challenge,” it reads. “Have you thought of fostering? If so you can earn £590 a week.” Two things are interesting about this, one general, one specific. For a start, it shows what mind-boggling sums are now available to councils whose social workers take children into care. I have quoted before advertisements offering foster carers £400 a week for each child. But £590 a week means that a foster home looking after three children taken from their parents, which is not uncommon, can now earn almost £100,000 a year. In addition are the lavish fees charged by fostering agencies to make the arrangements, almost invariably run by ex-social workers. Most people have no idea what a big business fostering has become. When one such firm, National Fostering Agency, representing 175 local authorities after being launched by two ex-social workers in 1995, was placed on the market by Rothschilds in 2012, it was sold by its “venture capital” owners Sovereign to a “private equity” firm, Graphite Capital, for a staggering £130 million. The more specific point, however, is that, of all the councils that feature in my files as seizing children from their parents for what seem like questionable reasons, Norfolk and Suffolk are high on the list. In one of the most controversial cases I have reported, it was Norfolk’s social workers who were eventually forced to hand back a baby to its parents, after they had twice travelled to France to take the child into foster care in England. Having been thwarted in their plans, when a judge ruled that they had no legal right to do so, they seized several more children from different members of the same family who, to justify their removal, now face many charges of criminal abuse. Yet last year the children’s department of this same council, Norfolk, received the most damning report possible from Ofsted, failing it as “inadequate” (the lowest rating) on every one of the five counts on which social workers are judged, from “quality of provision” to “leadership and management”. Our children’s minister, Edward Timpson, may last week have launched yet another initiative to speed up the rate at which children are adopted. But even he only mentions 6,000 children waiting for adoption, compared with the record 68,000 currently in care in England and Wales alone. It is hardly surprising, when fostering has excited the interest of venture capitalists as one of the most lucrative industries in the country, that the number of children social workers take from their parents into care has, in the past five years, well over doubled, to 28,000 a year. What then happens to too many of these children in “care” is just another part of this very disturbing picture. Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/children_shealth/10882715/Why-the-explosion-in-child-snatching-is-big-business.html Guidance informing local authorities in England of their duty following the passing into law of “staying put” has been published by the Government, the relevant part being chapter 7. Since 20 May 2014, young people in England have the right to stay with their foster carers beyond their 18th birthday if both parties agree. This change in the law was made following the Fostering Network’s Don’t Move Me campaign in 2013-14. The guidance issued states that: - local authorities should pay former foster carers (foster carers providing staying put provision) an allowance that will cover all reasonable costs of supporting the care leaver to remain living with them; - it is important that local authorities provide clear information to their foster carers on the financial support they provide former foster carers in supporting young people in ‘staying put’ arrangements; - young people living with foster carers who are supported by independent providers should be treated in the same way as those young people living with local authority inhouse foster carers. The guidance also tells local authorities that they must ensure that all young people in foster care are aware of staying put support available by disseminating information to the young person and foster carer, if possible, at the start of the fostering placement and/or at least at the point when they young person turns 16. Robert Tapsfield, chief executive at the Fostering Network, said: “This guidance is clear in stating that former foster carers must be supported when a decision is made that young person stays with them post-17. Foster care, and an extension of that support into adulthood, can be very beneficial for young people and the content of this guidance shows that the Government have recognised this. “The Fostering Network is holding the first Staying Put conference in July and it will help all involved understand the changes in the law. We would encourage people from throughout the fostering community in England to come and engage with ourselves, the children’s minister, foster carers, young people and social workers to find out about how we can make staying put work for all children and young people in foster care.” Book your place at the Fostering Network’s Staying Put conference on Tuesday 15 July in London by visiting the Fostering Network website. Source: http://www.fostering.net/news/2014/guidance-staying-put-released#.U5rIv_ldU1Z |
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