Supervision of Foster Carers

Foster carers benefit from professional and supportive relationships with the Fostering Service, which help them to provide high-quality care.

Foster carers are part of the team around the child, which is mutually supportive. They are actively involved in planning for the child, and their views are valued by the Local Authority Agency to positively influence children’s progress. They work very effectively together with children’s social workers to ensure that placements are appropriate, planned and meet the needs of children.  The support provided to foster carers by the Agency the Fostering Service is also designed to help them to cope with the additional demands of fostering on their family life.

All approved foster carers will have an allocated, suitably qualified supervising social worker. The allocated supervising social worker is responsible for supervising and supporting carers, ensuring that they have the necessary guidance, support and direction to maintain a quality service, including safe caring practices, in order to meet a child’s needs. This will include an understanding that they must work within the National Minimum Standards for Fostering, the agency's policies, procedures and guidance and the law.

As a matter of good practice and considering learning from serious case reviews, foster carers, unless there are exceptional circumstances for not doing so, will have a new supervising social worker allocated every three years. This change should take place, where practical to do so, following the foster carers annual review. This will help to promote good practice and ensure working relationships provide support and challenge in meeting the needs of any child/ren cared for by the foster carer/s.

It is the social worker for the child or children in the foster placement who holds responsibility for specific advice or support in relation to the child and his or her Care Plan and Placement Plan.

The supervising social worker must also ensure that the foster carers' training and development needs are identified, and that newly approved carers work towards meeting the Training, Support and Development Standards and completing identified mandatory training. They also have the responsibility to ensure foster carers are familiar and made aware of new policies and guidance. The supervising social worker should provide effective support and challenge through the supervision and review processes to ensure that carers are providing high-quality care.

A programme of supervision visits should be arranged and agreed between the foster carer and the supervising social worker from the time of the foster carer's approval and endorsed by the supervising social worker's line manager. This should include the completion of a supervision agreement by the supervising social with the foster carer(s) to support with expectations around supervision. A supervision agreement must be completed annually with foster carers, or if there is a change of supervising social worker. A copy of the agreement should be retained by the foster carers, with a copy uploaded to the carers mosaic file. The agreement should follow the NCC FC Supervision Agreement template, with this adapted to the carer(s) and their circumstances as appropriate.

Supervision is essentially a supportive and enabling two way process to:

• Ensure the foster carers understand how they contribute to the Local Authority's services for children;
• Enable foster carers to contribute effectively to the plans for the children for whom they are caring; ensure that plans for children remain in children’s best interests;
• Provide appropriate monitoring and feedback on the foster carers' role to ensure National Minimum Standards and Training, Support and Development Standards are fully met;
• Complete an ongoing personal development plans for each carer, which  is linked to their training and their annual review;
• Support foster carers by providing advice or making this available from elsewhere as appropriate;
• Give foster carers an opportunity to raise any problems and make sure they are addressed appropriately;
• Acknowledge the challenges and demands that the fostering tasks make on foster families and ensure appropriate support is available;
• Recognise and address any difficulties the foster carers’ own children may be experiencing arising from fostering;
• Assist foster carers to work in an anti discriminatory way that respects and promotes individual differences;
• Challenge foster carers when they are not adhering to National Minimum Standards and Safe Caring Practices;
• Where there are two foster carers in the household, the expectation is they both attend supervision. The expectation is that the secondary carer, should be included in supervision at least every other occasion. If this is not possible, due to work commitments, the foster carer and supervising social worker should be flexible to enable this to take place.

The agenda for each meeting should follow the NCC Supervising Social Worker Formal Supervision with Foster Carers Template to cover:

1. Updates since the last supervision;
2. Actions from the last supervision;
3. Discussions around the child(ren)/young person (YP) and their individual needs;
4. Strengths Developments Questionnaire (SDQ);
5. Voice of the child/ young person;
6. Any safeguarding issues;
7. Impact on the foster carer(s) and their family members/commitments;
8. Other support matters;
9. Foster carer’s recording which is to be reviewed by the supervising social worker who should sign the foster carers' records;
10. Health and Safety;
11. Discuss/ evaluation of personal development and training;
12. Service Developments and Updates.

The supervision visits should be electronically recorded on the  pro forma for Foster Carer Supervision Record, signed by the foster carer and the supervising social worker, and should include the above discussions and include:

• Any concerns expressed;
• Any support needs expressed by the foster carers and how they will be met;
• Any financial issues.

The completed electronic supervision recording will evidence how the carers are meeting the Training Support and Development Standards and National Minimum Standards 2011, with any agreed actions identified. It should also include any observations of the interactions between the foster carer and the child(ren), who are looked after, that are residing in the foster home.

The typed supervision notes must be shared with the foster carer(s) once completed, for them to read and signed within 5 working days. If there are any disagreements as to the content of the record, this should be recorded by the supervising social worker, as to the details around this on the supervision record. A copy of the supervision notes should be kept by both parties and should be signed, any signature pages need to be uploaded to documents.

If there are any disagreements or issues, then these should be raised by the foster carer with the Supervising Social Worker at the earliest opportunity. If any issues cannot be resolved, then the Fostering Team Manager should be contacted. All contact details for the Fostering Team Manager and independent advice will be provided to foster carers, with this information detailed within the supervision agreement.

The supervision records will contribute to the Foster Carer’s review report - see Review and Termination of Approval of Foster Carers Procedure.

Supervision meetings will take place on a monthly basis for all foster carers.

Additional visits should be made for the purposes of support to the foster carer or any member of the foster family alongside telephone calls and emails to share information.

 Visits will take place to address concerns/allegations, often with immediate effect, in line with the Managing Allegations and Concerns Policy. 

It may be agreed between the foster carers, Supervising Social Worker and Team Manager that supervision meetings are held less frequently. The decision is at the discretion of the Team Manager, when consideration has been made around any specific issues or circumstances that would warrant acting outside of monthly supervision. Any agreed variation from monthly supervision MUST be clearly recorded by the authorising Team Manager in case notes and highlighted within the Annual Review.

There should be unannounced visits undertaken at least twice a year. Any child(ren) who are looked after within the foster home should be seen by the supervising social worker on at least one occasion within the fostering annual review period. The main purpose of the unannounced visit will be to look at the home environment that a child is living in. Good practice would be to undertake additional visits where there have been concerns, a plan should be in place to undertake any additional visits.

The unannounced visits will usually be undertaken by the foster carers' supervising social worker, although other supervising social workers could undertake the visits.

On the visit they would need to have a knowledge of:

1. Who is in the home
2. Who is looking after the child
3. If the carer is not at home, what arrangements have been made for the care of the child.

If the foster carers are not at home, the supervising social worker should leave a note for the foster carers to say that s/he has visited. If the foster carers are not at home but the child is present and being looked after by someone else, the social worker should check the identity of that person but should not continue with the visit.

Unannounced visits should include:

• An opportunity to talk to the LAC child;
• See the child’s bedroom;
• Observe the home environment in terms of health and safety and safe caring. Address any concerns;
• Observe the relationship between all adults and children present.

Unannounced visits should be recorded on case notes, utilising the unannounced visit pro-forma, which should be shared and discussed with the carer(s).

Supervising social workers should ensure the following tasks are done: 

Where allegations regarding childcare or child protection are made, the supervising social worker should refer to 12.17 Investigating Concerns and Allegations Against Foster Carers Including Historical Issues policy and gain direction from their team manager.

The supervising social worker should.

1. Make the carers aware of the process and of their rights during any investigation;
2. Make the carer’s aware of their own possible conflict of interests and inform them of where they can seek alternative support and advice from the Fostering Network or other independent sources.