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CHILDREN’S GUIDE
Dear …………………
This guide has been written for you (and children and young people like you) as you are not able to live at home with your own family. This means that you are ‘looked after’ by your local social services (part of the council for the area where you normally live) and being fostered for them.
Your foster carer also has a copy of this guide, and either she, or your own social worker, can explain anything in the guide that you find difficult to understand. The guide tells you some important things about the Independent Asian Fostering Bureau that arranged your foster care home. It also tells you how you can complain if you are dissatisfied with your foster care.
Some Questions you may have
What does fostering mean?
You may be aware of this already, but, basically, being fostered means that you will be cared for in a foster carer’s own home, and the foster carer will make you welcome, help you settle into the home, and generally look after you as well as he or she can.
Who is my foster carer?
The name of the foster carer who is caring for you is: ………………
His/her address is:………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………
Not everyone can be a foster carer, and foster carers are carefully chosen to provide children like you with the best possible care while they are being looked after and unable to stay with their own family.
Why am I being fostered?
If you do not understand why you are staying in a foster home instead of your own home, your own social worker will be able to tell you the reasons for this. Your foster carer may also be able to explain this, and if you have difficulty in getting in touch with your social worker, your foster carer can make arrangements for you to see your social worker.
How long will I be fostered?
If you do not know how long you are likely to stay in foster care, or are unclear about plans for you, your social worker will be able to advise you. The foster ‘placement agreement meeting’ (see below) should give you some idea of this, too. Your stay in foster care may be for just a short while as certain things are sorted out, or it may be for a longer time, depending on the circumstances.
Who does my foster carer work for?
Your foster carer belongs to what is called an independent fostering agency, whose name is Independent Asian Fostering Bureau (IAFB). The agency is not part of your local social services, but it has been asked by them to find the right Asian foster carer for you while you are being looked after by them.
What do Independent Asian Fostering Bureau do?
They provide foster carers for children needing foster homes. Social workers who work for Independent Asian Fostering Bureau give support, advice and help to the agency’s foster carers. They support your own foster carer, and other foster carers who look after children, who, like you, are unable to live with their own families at the moment. The agency’s workers keep closely in touch with the council’s social workers to make certain that plans made for you are carried out.
What is the Placement Agreement Meeting?
When you are fostered a meeting, called the placement agreement meeting, is held immediately, for you, your social worker, your family, and your foster carer and her social worker to discuss and agree the nature of your care and stay in the foster home, and other very important matters, such as contact with your family and friends. The contact with family and friends (and how and where this should take place) must be agreed by your social worker, but your foster carer will certainly help you keep in touch with your family where this agreed.
Any special needs such as medical or dietary requirements that you may have, and the family’s routines and the ‘ground rules’ in foster home-especially those meant for your care and safety-will also be discussed in the placement agreement meeting.
As well as those matters, other issues such as your leisure interests and pastimes, bedtimes, pocket money, fares, and the like will also be made clear and agreed. So will arrangements for any medical treatment, dental or other examinations, and your school attendance. Ideally, your ‘child care plan’ should be available at this meeting, so that everyone is clear what the purpose and aim of your foster care placement is.
The placement agreement meeting is very important for the start of your fostering experience, and decisions and agreements made in it are recorded on special forms. You may find parts of this are boring but it is important that as much information as possible is given so that the best care can be given to you.
There is another important meeting about your care. This is called the ‘Child Care Review’ meeting.
What is a Child Care Review?
All children who are ‘looked after’ by social services must have regular child care reviews by law. As you are being fostered by social services, you will also have a child care review. This should be held within one week of you being looked after and placed in foster care.
The child care review meeting is arranged by social services to look closely at all of your needs, wishes and confirm your child care plan. Usually social services will arrange for an experienced and independent person to ‘chair’ this meeting, and this person will make sure that you are able to say what you want or feel about all matters affecting you. Your own social worker can explain to you more about this important meeting, and who and why people are involved in it.
The child care review meeting may take place in the foster home, or elsewhere, for example, at social services offices, but you should understand that the purpose of the meeting is different to that of the placement agreement meeting. Child care reviews will take place at regular intervals (if you continue to be fostered).
How else will people know what I want?
The placement agreement and child care review meeting are very important, as you will be able to say how you feel, and what you want right at the beginning of being fostered, but you will have other opportunities to say what want, or how you feel, during the period that you are fostered. You will be encouraged to talk to your social worker and foster carer. Both can advise and help you, and perhaps let you know more of what is happening at this difficult time for you.
How can my foster carer help me?
Your foster carer will try to help you as much as possible where you need care, help and advice. He or she understands that leaving your own family, and being looked after by social services, can be very upsetting for you, and for your family.
Your foster carer knows that staying with a foster family and meeting new people (perhaps other children) in the home may be strange and difficult for you at first. He or she appreciates that you may need time to settle into the foster home and get used to so many new things, new people, or different routines and ways of doing things, and will do his or her best to support you.
The foster carer and members of the foster carer’s family are experienced in fostering matters and understand that you may have many worries or anxieties about yourself and family. Your foster carer will try to answer any questions you may have, and allow time for you to become more familiar with your foster family and the home.
The next part of the guide provides you with more information about Independent Asian Fostering Bureau, who runs it, and what the agency is trying to do for its foster carers and for fostered children.
The guide tells you some more about the services and facilities which Independent Asian Fostering Bureau generally provides to children, foster carers, council social workers and other people who are involved in your care, and, briefly, how foster carers are approved, trained and supported.
Some further Questions
Who are Independent Asian Fostering Bureau?
This is the name of the fostering agency responsible for your foster carer. It was set up a few years ago by a small group of people who were Asian social workers and who wished to set up an independent fostering agency for Asian children.
The agency then is not part of the council who employs your social worker, or any other council, but rather it is an independent fostering agency and private company.
The fostering agency is managed by social workers. One of whom is known in law as the ‘registered person’. These managers say how the agency should be run, and they are responsible for making sure that the agency operates legally and properly, that foster carers are treated well, and children living with the foster carers receive excellent care.
The agency manager is very experienced in child care and fostering work, and is a qualified social worker. The agency also employs a number of social workers, and an office worker.
One of the agency’s workers is responsible for visiting and supporting your own foster carer, and generally making sure that things go well for you both. Some social workers may ‘assess’ people who apply to become foster carers to see if they are suitable to care for children and/or young people.
Foster carers are supported by the fostering agency social workers when they are approved and children are placed with them. The agency’s workers support the carer and the placements made. (These social workers have different responsibilities to those of your own social worker, but they-like your foster carer-will work closely with your social worker, so that you have the best possible foster care).
Where is Independent Asian Foster Bureau?
The agency has its office at Ilford, Essex.
The full address is:
Independent Asian Foster Bureau,
1, Balfour Rd, Ilford, Essex, Ig1 4HP
phone: 020 8553 2989
website: www.iafb.co.uk
What is the relationship of IAFB to social services?
Council social services are not always able to provide foster care homes for all the children they look after. Sometimes they need to ask agencies like Independent Asian Foster Bureau to find the right kind of foster home in the right place for children like you, if they have no foster home available themselves at that time. When IAFB can help they offer your social worker’s social services department a foster care placement.
Then, if the council social workers feel that the placement is suitable for you, an agreement is made between IAFB and your council. While IAFB provides a foster home with high standards of care and makes sure that you are safe and well cared for, your social worker is still responsible for you and the plans made for your care.
What services does Independent Asian Foster Bureau offer?
It provides different Asian foster care homes for Asian children looked after by social services on a short-term, long-term, or emergency basis. It also has foster carers for respite care, and for where children are waiting for a permanent home.
The agency is able to provide, or arrange for children to receive, specialist education support and services, as well as specialist health care where this is needed.
What does IAFB aim to do?
As with all the foster care placements it arranges, Independent Asian Foster Bureau aims to provide you with a foster care placement where you will be safe and receive consistent, high quality care. It expects its foster carers to understand children’s needs, and how best to meet those needs.
With the foster placement, the agency aims to offer you a comfortable home with a healthy life style, where you will be warmly welcomed and made to feel at home. It wishes you to feel secure in your foster home, and to be able by having a good family home to develop your potential to the full. It expects your carer to offer the support, guidance, help and encouragement that you need with any difficulties you might experience whilst being fostered, and to ensure that your cultural and language needs as an Asian child or young person are promoted.
The agency aims to be sensitive and responsive to your needs, so that issues are quickly and properly dealt with. It also seeks to encourage participation in planning for your care and future, and to work in ‘partnership’ with you, your family, and other persons concerned with your care during the time that you are looked after in foster care. It expects its carers and staff to listen to what you say, take account of your views and feelings, and to act upon them or represent them for you as appropriate.
More generally, the agency aims to recruit, assess, approve and support a wide range of Asian foster carers, who are able to understand, care for and meet the needs of Asian children of all ages, so that children are suitably matched with approved carers.
What does the law say about fostering services?
IAFB, as a ‘fostering services provider’, must work within a number of laws and government requirements introduced recently to make sure children in foster care are properly cared for, and that their fostering agencies keep to high standards in all aspects of their work. The Children Act 1989 covers much of the law regarding the way that social services care for a child who they look after.
Independent Asian Fostering Bureau must also work to certain regulations and official standards (these are called the Fostering Services Regulations 2002, and the National Minimum Standards for Fostering Services 2002).
The OFSTED Commission whose details are given at the end of the guide, is responsible for ensuring that agencies like IAFB achieve and maintain the necessary standards of care in foster care homes that they provide.
Overall, what the values and principles in the law, standards and government guidance mean is that there should be a consistent, child-centred approach to both child care and fostering, and the promotion of children’s welfare and well being. It means your welfare being put first in any planning for you.
IAFB supports these principles and values, and wishes to meet all the legal requirements and standards with regard to its foster care services.
Where does it get its Foster Carers from?
Independent Asian Foster Bureau seeks to recruit a wide range of Asian foster carers. It receives applications to foster from different people from Asian communities and cultures over a wide area. The agency treats all applicants to foster in the same fair way in deciding whether they are suitable to foster children for the agency. Applications to become foster carers are received all the time, but some foster carers are now very experienced .
What is an assessment?
IAFB social workers carry out ‘assessments’ of applicants to foster, and this is lengthy process, with many questions being asked about the applicants from many different people and agencies. The whole assessment involves a very careful examination of applicants’ background, their character, personal qualities, circumstances, and ability to care for children. If, after the assessment, and looking into these matters, applicants are thought to be suitable to foster a report is written for the fostering panel.
Who says that a person is suitable to be a foster carer?
Applicants must also meet and seek approval from the agency’s fostering panel. Not everyone who applies to foster will be approved to foster. Approval of foster carers must (by law) be made by a fostering panel, which is made up of people who know about child care and are experienced in fostering, social work, education, health, and other fields of work involving children. If the fostering panel thinks that someone is suitable to foster, it will then recommend approval to IAFB. The panel recommends whether the person should be approved and says what the approval is for exactly; for example, the number of children to be fostered at any time.
What training do foster carers get for fostering?
Applicants being assessed have ‘preparation for fostering’ training, and after approval, they receive training in a number of areas regarding child care and fostering. From then on foster carers receive regular training in different aspects of fostering and developments in the fostering and child care fields. Their need for training needs is looked at regularly, so that they are always well prepared for fostering different children.
What support does IAFB give to foster carers?
Mention has been made already of the support that foster carers receive from them. Each foster carer, like your own, has a social worker to advise, help and support. Your foster carer’s social worker will visit the home regularly to see that the placement is going well, and the foster carer is able to look after you well. He or she will no doubt talk to you as well about how thing are going for you. Your foster carer can contact the office for support or advice at any time day or night if necessary, and someone from IAFB also phones the carers frequently to keep in touch.
Are foster carers reviewed by IAFB?
Yes. The law says that each foster carer must have a formal ‘review’ at least once a year. The review takes place in a formal meeting between the foster carer and IAFB social workers and managers. The procedure is the same for all foster carers so that it is fair and consistent.
In the foster carer’s review meeting IAFB, together with the foster carer, looks closely at how things have been in the last year for the foster carer. They look at the placements made, and consider what training is required and/or support needed, and any other changes thought necessary, as well as any complaints made and how they were dealt with. Your social worker and you will be asked about the foster placement and the care given to you, so that your views are also available for the review.
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The last part of this guide tells you how, if you are dissatisfied with this service, you, or anyone acting for you (for example, your parents or relatives), can make a complaint about any part of the service you get from your foster carer, or any other person in Independent Asian Foster Bureau.
This part of the guidance is very important, since it tells you how complaints which you might make about the care you receive would be considered and responded to by IAFB, and also tells you how you can also contact an organisation called the OFSTED Commission., if you feel dissatisfied with the care given to you.
OFSTED is an organisastion, which was set up by the government to make sure that children and young people looked after in foster homes receive the highest standards of care in their foster home. OFSTED looks closely at the care given by all fostering agencies in the country to make certain that certain standards are achieved.
If asked, OFSTED will look into complaints made by individual children themselves, or by persons making complaints for them, about their care. OFSTED will make sure that what any child says is listened to, and any complaint is looked into properly by a person who is not connected to the fostering agency. If it finds something wrong in the care given to that child or young person, it will make certain that changes and improvements are made.
What can I do if I am dissatisfied with my foster care?
If you are not happy about anything IAFB, its staff or foster carers do or have done, please tell us so that we can look into it and try to put matters right immediately. You can complain to the IAFB fostering manager who will look into things for you, and let you know as soon as possible how matters are being dealt with and by whom.
If you don’t feel able to talk to anyone in the agency or foster home, or you are still unhappy about any part of the service, you can contact your social worker, who will act for you if you wish. There are also a number of independent organisations whose staff will also advise you and try to help you solve your problems. These include Child Line, the NS.P.C.C and the Childrens’ Advice & Representation Service. (Contact details of these independent organisations are given in the IAFB KEEP SAFE ).
As well as these organisations, there is the OFSTED Commission, who you may contact if you remain unhappy with the care you receive or your problems remain unsolved.
OFSTED can be contacted by letter internet or ‘phone at:
OFSTED ,
Piccadilly Gate
Store street
Manchester
M1 2WD
Tel: 0300 123 1231
We hope that you will find this guide useful, and if you have any suggestions to make the guide more helpful for children, please let us know.
With Very Best wishes.
REMEMBER YOUR KEEP SAFE CARDS WILL GIVE YOU MORE DETAILS AND LOOK AT THE CARTOON ON THE IAFB WEBSITE FOR CHILDREN
Independent Asian Fostering Bureau