Agenda item

To provide information about the general management of the in-house fostering service and how it is achieving good outcomes for children in accordance with standard 25.7 of the Fostering National Minimum Standards (2011).

Kelli Eboji (Head of LAC and Permanency, Brent Council) introduced the report, which provided information on the general management of the in-house fostering service and how it was achieving good outcomes for children. In introducing the report, she highlighted the following key points:

• Fostering fortnight had taken place, focused on recruitment of foster carers, and there had been some follow up events throughout the summer. These had proved productive in terms of raising awareness and increasing enquiries.
• A fostering walk had taken place in Gladstone Park which ended with a cream tea for foster carers and had been a nice celebration event.
• There were several assessments in progress, with 5 at Stage 1 and 4 at Stage 2 which was promising and reinforced the belief that going out to the community through events was beneficial.
• The report had new sections focused on kinship to give kinship carers a more prominent profile. Some recent kinship activity involved a funday during kinship care week.
• The Council had bid for funding from the DfE for recruitment and retention of foster carers jointly with West London and had been successful. The Council was now in the process of starting a Fostering Recruitment Hub with West London which was being led by Hammersmith and Fulham. As part of that project, a model of support known as ‘mockingbird’ was being piloted, where foster carers supported each other through self-sufficient support clusters.

In considering the reports, the following points were raised:

The Committee asked what the difference between kinship carers and foster carers was. Kelli Eboji explained that if a child was placed in an emergency placement with their kin and that kin then became a carer then they would only receive a basic allowance because they would not yet have been to Foster Panel for approval. The connected person did not need to be a blood relative but connected to the child in some way. Once that carer had been approved at Foster Panel then they would get a slight increase in the fostering allowance they were paid. The fostering allowance was calculated on an age basis and had 4 tiers with 3 levels, including an enhanced rate for children with additional needs. In terms of support, kinship carers were entitled to the same level of support as traditional foster carers, including an allocated social worker. 

The Committee asked whether the service had plans to bring more activity face to face instead of virtual, such as training, foster carer support groups and Foster Panel. Kelli Eboji highlighted the need for balance in this regard, as it was important that foster carers completed their training and foster carers could not always attend in-person training. The evidence showed that, generally, foster carers did attend online training as a preference to face to face, but the service did not want to stop face to face training completely. The service was clear with foster carers on the expectations for them to undertake training, but having that flexibility was important, in particular for kinship carers who the service may struggle to engage in training as they had come to fostering through a different route. The service used every opportunity to train foster carers in multiple creative ways, such as asking the foster carer to read an article and then discuss it with their social worker.

The Committee was interested in the Brazilian Community Day that the LAC and Permanency Service had attended and asked whether the service had seen any interest in fostering from attendees that day. Elena Muller (Service Manager – LAC and Permanency, Brent Council) replied that the day had gone very well and the service would be looking to attend more of these community events in future. The service had recently been to a Somalian activity day. The focus was on being present in the community in order to ensure Brent’s multiple diverse communities knew about fostering. The service would also be attending multi-faith forums. Kelli Eboji thanked social workers who had attended those events who had taken time out on their weekends to talk about fostering with the community. The Committee asked for councillors to be sent information on these events and for the Committee to receive the foster carer newsletter.

RESOLVED:

i)              To note the contents of the report.