SCIE/NICE recommendations on looked after children: Promoting the quality of life of looked-after children and young people

Care provided by family and friends

Evidence suggests the high value of care provided by family and friends may lead to good long-term outcomes for many children and young people. However, care by family and friends can be placed under strain without adequate financial support, clear signposting to services and timely access to mental health services for children and young people.

Recommendation 39 Consider developing a national strategy to implement statutory guidance for care provided by family and friends

Who should take action?

• Department for Education.

• What action should they take? Open

  • Consider developing a national strategy to implement statutory guidance from the Department for Education (18) on the value of care by family and friends, with particular attention to the need for adequate financial support for looked-after children and young people in their care.

Recommendation 40 Promote care provided by family and friends

Who should take action?

• Directors of children’s services.
• Social work training bodies.
• Senior staff with responsibility for commissioning and providing health services.

• What action should they take? Open

  Support placements with family and friends as a choice of equal status to adoption, foster care and residential care for looked-after children and young people, by ensuring that:

  • social work education and in-service training provides the knowledge and skills to support care with family and friends as a sustainable placement option (see recommendations on training 50–52)
  • extended family and friends who could be carers are identified as part of the care planning process, and arrangements are made to assess their suitability
  • local placement strategies provide effective support to approve relatives and friends as foster carers who can offer stability and continuity of care
  • agencies provide the necessary financial and emotional resources to support care efforts, given the high levels of emotional and behavioural difficulty children and young people can present (see recommendations 8–11 and 16–19). This support should include:
    • information about what financial support is available
    • access to health services provided for all looked-after children and young people, including child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) and opportunities for short breaks.

18.

In March 2010, the then Department for Children, Schools and Families issued ‘Draft statutory guidance for local authorities on family and friends care’. It supports care by family and friends and aims to reduce the differences in the way services are provided across local authorities. At the time of writing this NICE/SCIE guidance (September 2010), the Department for Education had yet not issued final guidance.