Archived decisions
FAMILY AND FRIENDS CARE POLICY DEVELOPMENT
1 The Executive Member was pleased to endorse the policy development for family and friends care, underpinned by the use of family group conferences.
2 The objectives of the family and friends care project are:-
(a) To increase the opportunities for children, who cannot live with their birth parents and who might otherwise enter the care system, to be brought up within their extended families and communities, for the duration of their childhood.
(b) For the Local Authority to assess and support these care arrangements which will include financial support where needed, to ensure these children's needs are met and their family and friends carers are enabled to care for them.
(c) To ensure that the children placed with the family and friends carers and at risk of entering the care system do not do so, unless their wellbeing demands it, and where appropriate to bring out of the care system those children currently living with relatives approved as foster carers, providing this continues to meet their needs.
(d) To meet agreed public service agreement target of family and friends care in Hampshire ie to increase the number of children placed with family and friend carers from a baseline of 163 children in 2001 to 261 in 2005.
3 Hampshire currently has a 141 children with family and friends foster care and 83 children in family and friends care supported by other legal arrangements and is making good progress towards it target.
4 At present legislation does not allow the project to include a broad spectrum of care arrangements for children who do not need to be looked after which conflicts with the aspirations of the project. Children are only able to be placed outside the looked after system with relatives defined under the Children Act 1989 - ie grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, step-parents. In all other placements with more distant relatives, or with friends, the child will need to become a child looked after to meet with current legal requirements.
5 Work is continuing with organisations such as the Family Rights Group to bring these issues and barriers to the attention of the Department of Education and Skills in the hope of making progress at a national level to achieve a change in the law.