Fostering One Minute Guides - Print version

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One Minute Guide to Passports

Children’s passport applications

Foster carer’s role:

  • Please leave at least 6 months prior to requiring a passport to allow for application process and delays.
  • Provide 1 photo per child using one of the following options: Download a passport photo app through your app store on your phone, you will need to check what they charge, for example, £4.99 for a photo and code which will be sent to you digitally within 48 hours or they send photo and code via post within a few days for an additional cost of £2.00. Alternatively, if you go to an approved photobooth/shop, they take the photo which normally meets the criteria and provides the code for your application. (Check online for your nearest photobooth) This is a website you could use to find a photo booth [https://passport-photo.online/en-gb/blog/photo-booth-near/#gref]
  • Contact supervising social worker with the photo who will complete an online passport application.

Who pays for the passport?

The Fostering Support service will fund the application.

Supervising social worker role:

Documents required (Must be originals and not copies)

  • Birth/Adoption certificate or registration certificate
  • Parent’s passport details (if applicable)
  • Date of Parent’s marriage (if applicable)
  • Grandparent’s documents (if applicable)
  • A counter signatory to sign your child’s application form and photos

Children’s social worker’s role:

  • Obtain and provide passports or birth certificates for birth parents and any other relevant documents and give to supervising social worker.
  • Apply for replacement birth certificate if needed.

How long will it take?

  • You should allow up to 10 weeks from when the passport office receives old passport, any supporting documents, or confirmation of identity details if needed. (Information taken from GOV.UK website March 2023)

Common barriers:

If the name on the passport does not match what’s on the birth certificate

You must send:

  • a signed and dated letter from everyone with parental responsibility confirming the name change and that they agree to the child getting a new passport
  • a deed poll
  • at least one piece of evidence that shows the new name being used, for example NHS records, child benefits or school records

Child does not have a birth certificate

If child is not a UK national

One Minute Guide to Holidays

Taking your fostering family on holiday

This guide is to help provide some clarity to what and how foster carers need to think about when they would like to take their foster children on holiday in the UK and abroad with them as a family.

In all cases the child’s social worker will need to know:

  • Proposed dates and duration of the holiday
  • The wishes and feelings of the child
  • Address(es)/contact details of the holiday location and what type of holiday
  • Insurance details
  • Who will be present on the holiday e.g. names of the other children and other adults
  • If the holiday involves staying with friends or relatives, their names and addresses
  • Emergency contacts
  • Any risk assessments that may be required, which should include any health or behaviours the child presents with, as well as the holiday environment itself

Permission

You will need to obtain permission to take a child on holiday, this includes holidays in the UK and abroad. Children must not be taken on holiday during the school term unless there are exceptional circumstances in which case you will also need approval from the Head Teacher and the children’s social worker operational lead.

All holidays need to be approved by the Children’s Social Worker (CSW). If going abroad permission will be also needed from the CSW’s Team Manager and Operational Lead.

Once agreed the carer will be issued a Holiday Approval Letter signed off by the CSW Operational Lead.

Documents

If you are going abroad you will need to take:

  • A copy of the Care Order
  • Passports
  • Holiday Approval Letter signed off by the CSW Operational Lead

Notice period to take children on holiday

As soon as you start thinking about a holiday and have something in mind, inform the CSW so all the information and documentation can be in place in good time.

Lots of children in care don’t cope with transitions and change so getting them involved with the planning can sometimes help them.

Safeguarding

The Safer Caring Plan/Agreement will need updating by the SSW and foster carer to outline safe arrangements for the holiday and include:

  • Any information the foster carer feels relevant to make an informed decision
  • You need to include sleeping arrangements – discuss with your CSW what a sensible approach will be if the Safer Caring Plan needs to be amended for the holiday period. For example, if you are booked in a family room or a studio apartment/chalet etc.

How to request permission to go on holiday

You should discuss it with your CSW and copy in your supervising social worker. Put all the information in an email to them and ask them to complete the holiday approval form.

Reporting accidents whilst on holiday

Any accidents on holiday should be reported in the normal way on day-to-day recording. If an accident is significant you should inform the CSW about it.

It would be advisable to check any relevant policies of the premises or activity in relation to accident reporting should it affect your insurance policy too.

Risk Assessments

Foster carers have delegation of authority as usual whilst on holiday. As such, you are able to make usual day-to-day decisions about activities. These should be informed both by consideration of the child’s individual needs and the health and safety of the activity. Please note that health and safety planning for activities may not be the same in another country as would be usual in the UK.

Last minute cancellations

A child who has experienced trauma and neglect can find being out of routine difficult. In unusual cases this can mean a holiday may not go ahead as planned. It would be advisable that you discuss and think about these possibilities during the planning stages and consider aids like a Hidden Disability lanyard [https://hiddendisabilitiesstore.com/insights/category/invisible-disabilities] which most airports and public places recognise.

It is strongly advised that research into travel insurance covers these eventualities as Children’s services will not usually be able to reimburse.

Foster carers need to consider how well they know a child before booking longer stays away from home and it can help build trust by doing short breaks, then progressing to longer ones.

One Minute Guide to Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH)

The Coventry Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH).

If you have concerns about a child or young person, contact the:            

Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub: 024 7678 8555.

Email: MASH@coventry.gov.uk [mailto:MASH@coventry.gov.uk].

If a child is in immediate danger call 999.

What is MASH?

The Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) brings together key professionals/partner agencies, comprising of West Midlands Police (WMP), Coventry & Warwickshire Partnership Tryst (CWPT), Education, Community Safety, Probation and Children’s Services.

The MASH will operate and look to ensure:

  • Children are better protected from harm and risk is minimised.
  • Safeguarding concerns about vulnerable children and young people are dealt with faster and in a more co-ordinated and consistent manner.
  • An improved ‘journey’ for the child with greater emphasis on early intervention and the provision of appropriate services at the right time.

By working in this way, support can be targeted on the most urgent cases so that vulnerable children and young people are protected from harm more effectively.

What happens next?

When a referral is made, information is shared and collated within the MASH, this builds a picture so the level of risk can be understood and will inform what needs to happen next, and as a result, better decisions are made about what action to take and what support is needed.

If a referral does meet the threshold for Social Care involvement, as the child or young person is thought to have been harmed or could be harmed in the future, they will be referred to Coventry City Council’s local area team for further assessment.

If the child or young person has not been harmed but we think they or their parent/carer would benefit from extra help, then their details will be passed onto the most appropriate service so that they receive the support they need.

Why is it important?

Safeguarding the children and young people of Coventry is everyone’s business.

It is important that children, young people, and families are safe and to achieve this we need to work together and ensure services are involved at the right time, so the right support can be provided.

One Minute Guide to useful contacts and out of hours support

The Fostering Service offers a 24-hour telephone out of hours support service as stated in the National Minimum Standards (Standard 21.3).  There is an effective out of hours advice and support service for foster carers which is staffed by members of the Fostering Service.

The contact number for out of hours fostering is: 07958 337681.

This service is used by foster carers that require support, for example, they may need some advice and support on how to manage some difficult behaviours.

If a foster carer requires advice and support regarding a child, for example, a child goes missing or requires emergency medical treatment, they must contact the emergency duty team on 024 7683 2222.

In addition to this service, please see below some useful contacts.

The Fostering Service’s office number is available Monday to Thursday 8:30am – 5pm and Friday 8:30am – 4:30pm (Excluding bank holidays).

Each foster carer will be allocated to a supervising social worker who can be contacted via telephone or email during office hours.

Contact numbers

  • Fostering office: 024 7697 5489
  • Looked after children and Permanence team: 024 7678 7980
  • West area office: 024 7678 5570
  • South area office: 024 7678 5572
  • East area office: 024 7678 5568
  • Central office: 024 7678 5575
  • Through Care: 024 7678 7808
  • Fostering finance: 024 7697 5448
  • Adoption Central England: 0300 3690556
  • MASH: 024 7678 8555

One Minute Guide to email communication between Foster Carers and Social Workers

Email Communication between Foster Carers and Social Workers

Effective communication between foster carers and children’s social workers is essential to enabling high quality care for fostered children and for those children achieving their best possible outcomes in stable homes.

This guide is provided to support this effective communication.

Foster Carers

  • In writing an email it is helpful to copy in both the child’s sw and your supervising social worker
  • Names of children should be anonymised
  • At the beginning give a one sentence summary of what your email is about
  • Then add one sentence about what you want by way of response and how quickly
  • If you do not need a response but want to provide information please say that
  • Emails should be brief –  writing a number of paragraphs delays response as it adds to reading time (if you need to pass on a large volume of information this should be in conversation following an email or in a separate document)
  • If you do not receive a timely response to your email you should use the escalation policy (add reference)
  • Do not include personal data in the subject heading
  • If replying or forwarding an email, always check the email trail to ensure that you are not sharing personal data unlawfully, which would result in you committing a data breach

Social Workers

  • It is an expectation of Coventry’s Foster Carer and Support Strategy that social workers communicate with foster carers in a relational and timely way
  • Children’s services recognise that there are times when competing demands may result in emails not being read and responded to immediately
  • However, it is important to children that emails from foster carers receive a response
  • It is an expectation that the out of office function is used for periods of absence or when leaving role with a clear indicator of who to email in the absence of the work
  • Think carefully about who needs to receive the email and make sure the recipients email address is entered accurately and double check the details again before you press ‘send’

One Minute Guide to Unannounced visit

The legal context

There is a requirement that the Fostering Service must undertake at least one unannounced visit to the foster home each year. This will be completed by your Supervising Social Worker, or another member of the Fostering Service.

The Fostering Services: National Minimum Standards 2011 (NMS) recommends an annual inspection of the foster home:

‘The foster home is inspected annually, without appointment, by the fostering service, to make sure that it continues to meet the needs of foster children’ NMS 10.5

‘Each approved foster carer is supervised by a named, appropriately qualified social worker who has meetings with the foster carer, including at least one unannounced visit a year’ NMS 21.8

The purpose of the unannounced visit is to see how the house and household is when a visit is not expected.  This applies both to the physical environment and the household dynamics.  Health and safety issues will be considered alongside what those at the home are doing.  The visit will be formally recorded, and the outcome or any recommendations shared and discussed with you by the worker completing the visit.

If the children are not at home when an unannounced visit is completed, the visit will be repeated at another time. 

What will we want to know or see

As part of the visit, we will want to know who is present in the home and if the foster carer is not present, who is looking after the child/children, making sure that these childcare arrangements are safe. If the foster carer is not present, the unannounced visit will not go ahead.

During an unannounced visit, you should expect that all relevant areas of the home will be observed, this includes the garden and the child (children’s bedrooms).  This will be a general check of the condition of the room and will not usually include looking into cupboards, fridges or storage.

It is not expected that foster carer’s bedroom, the foster carer’s children’s bedrooms or those of other household members will be seen during the unannounced visit.

The visit will consider the general condition of the house including health and safety and cleanliness.  Items like the availability of bedding, storage and toys for fostered children be considered.

Where fostered children are present the social worker will want to speak with them.

The unannounced visit will consider the dynamics in the household including what fostered children are doing and the interactions between them and the foster carers. 

Any concerns that the social worker observes will be mentioned verbally to the foster carers during the visit.  A form recording the unannounced visit will be completed at the time of the visit.   A copy of this will be provided to the carer within 5 working days.  Any disagreements regarding the contents of the form should be noted.

What if there are any concerns?

Should there be any concerns resulting from the unannounced visit, these should be raised with you during the visit or if this is not possible due to the presence of children as soon as possible after the visit by phone. 

Recommendations will be discussed and recorded in order rectify and work through any concerns.

As mentioned above, it is recommended that there is at least one unannounced visit per year, if concerns have been raised about your practice as foster carers or about the home, you may find that a worker attends your home more regularly.

Furthermore, if there have been specific concerns raised it might be right for a worker to inspect specific things.

For instance, if there have been complaints about lack of food available to a child or a poor diet, your Supervising Social Worker or Fostering Worker might want to check your food cupboards or fridge.

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