Placement Support Procedures
AMENDMENT
In May 2022, this chapter was refreshed.1. Introduction
The primary objective of all staff working with children in care is to ensure that the child is appropriately placed and supported to maximize stability and to develop strong relationships which last into adult life. Placement stability is critical to the emotional well-being and overall outcomes of children in our care. As corporate parents we must do everything that we can to work together to ensure placement stability and minimize the risk of multiple foster family and residential placement moves.
There are often warning signs before a foster family or care provider reaches the point at which a breakdown may occur. The Placement Support Meeting (PSM) is a means to respond to these warning signs, by bringing together the child, foster carer and other professionals involved to identify the right support to the placement. Placement Support Meetings can also be held on a regular basis to provide ongoing wrap around support when necessary.
2. Purpose of Placement Support Meetings
The Placement Support Meeting (PSM) has a key role to play in ensuring that issues and challenges for the child and foster carer are identified and reasons for this explored. The ultimate aim is to support relationships between the child, foster family or residential placement, restore stability and support the carers so that they can continue to offer a home to the child in question.
The meeting should also explore and identify possible resources to develop creative responses / interventions to maintain placement stability.
The support may come from a range of services and key relationships and be provided directly to the child, the carers, birth and wider family or all.
3. Key Principles
Early Intervention
Placement support meetings should happen prior to a crisis. They should act on any early warning signs that might be emerging within the foster family or residential placement and seek to intervene effectively before there is a risk that the placement may disrupt. There will be some children who will benefit from regular, ongoing support meetings to promote effective communication, recognise progress and quickly identify any challenges.
Draw on the History
Placement Support Meetings should draw on the chronology and consider any patterns in the child's history. This might include the details of early history, including developmental trauma (see Appendix 3: Developmental Trauma); how they came into care; any previous, unresolved loss from placement breakdowns; what support has been offered in the past and with what success. It may also help identify the context for particularly difficult incidents and any patterns in this too. Appendix 2: Analysing a Chronology - Child in Care may help summarise key information.
It may also be useful to explore and reflect on the foster carer's history of parenting. This might include previous children they have cared for; potential patterns in struggling to care for children; or unresolved issues related to previous placement breakdowns that may be a factor in current challenges.
Child-Centred
The child, what might be happening for them, their thoughts, wishes and feelings should be at the centre of Placement Support Meetings.
Children and young people should always be invited to attend Placement Support Meetings. Any decision to not invite a child/young person to a Placement Support Meeting must be a shared professional decision and the reason for not doing so must be clearly recorded. If a child or young person does not attend the meeting then the child's Social Worker should obtain the child's views in advance and should ensure that they are considered and recorded at the meeting. Creative tools to promote children's participation in meetings and to share their views may be helpful to support their involvement.
The meeting should promote a curious and empathic approach to what may be happening for the child. If challenges within the placement are due to the child's behaviour, consideration should be given to exploring the underlying feelings behind this behaviour and what the child might be trying to communicate and how they might be helped.
Some potential explanations might be the impact of early developmental trauma and strategies they have developed to survive this which become problematic in their foster family. The child might be preoccupied with their birth family which might make it hard to settle. They might be trying to express feelings of grief and loss of siblings, parents and family. They may not agree with or want to be in foster care or they might be confused regarding why they are in foster care and lack of life story information. Behaviour might be linked to how their racial and cultural needs are being supported or increased questions regarding their identity and family as they grow older. There may have been an event in the foster, birth or wider family which may have been unsettling for them. Whatever the reason, the meeting should explore the child's experience, their wishes and feelings in order to inform plans and next steps.
Where there is a risk of placement breakdown, the child should be asked if they would like a referral to be made to the advocacy service, or alternatively who is best placed to advocate for them.
Involve Foster Carers
Foster carers must attend placement support meetings. Foster carers should be supported by their Supervising Social Workers to express their views, feelings about their relationship with the child; events which may be impacting on the family and placement; issues in the professional network and what they think might help.
Involve birth family and kinship network
Where safe and possible, the views of the child's family and kinship network should be sought regarding the placement and what might help. Sometimes challenges in foster families emerge when children and young people ask more questions about their birth families, life stories and identity or feel more conflicted about being in foster care. Changes in what is happening for siblings and their families may also be a factor too. A significant feature of placement stability is good communication between foster family and birth family and the placement support process should be a further area where this can be promoted.
Providing support for birth family and kinship network and explore potential changes to contact/family time may have an important role to play in helping the child to express and manage their feelings and to feel more secure in their placements.
In the event of a foster placement breakdown consideration should be given to whether it is appropriate for the child to return home or whether any assessment or intervention might enable them to do so, or if family members may play a greater role in the life of the child.
Promote Strong Networks and Inter-Agency Working
The placement support process should promote transparency and close communication between the Team Around the Child. As a result, careful consideration should be given regarding who else should attend. This might include the IRO, health and education. If they are not able to attend, minutes should be shared and consideration given to how they might contribute to the support plan if needed. The meeting should enable key people in the child's life to explore how to work together and agree a shared understanding of what might help.
Encourage Strengths and What's Working Well
Placement support meetings will often be held when challenges have been identified in the relationships between foster carers, residential providers and the children they care for. Sometimes, discussions may become dominated by problems but the source of creative solutions can be in discussing what is going well, potential strengths for the child, carer, family and their relationships. Practitioners should ensure that consideration is given to strengths and exceptions to any problems and how this might help address current vulnerabilities in the placement.
Be Mindful of Language
Practitioners should ensure that they minimise the use of professional jargon and use child-friendly language within the context of the meeting. Whilst terms such as 'placement' and 'respite' have become routine and part of policy and procedure, these terms should be avoided in the context of these meetings. Language that Cares is a useful glossary of terms which children and young people have identified they would prefer professionals to use (see Appendix 4: Language that Cares).
4. Process
Any professional with a legitimate interest in the well-being of the child may request that the child's social worker convene a PSM. The meeting should be chaired by a Pod Manager (social work or fostering).
The child's social worker, Supervising Social Worker, pod manager and foster carers must attend. Children should be invited and their wishes and feelings sought. Birth family may also attend or consideration must be given to how their views can be gathered and shared. IRO's should also be invited to attend and their views considered and recorded during the meeting.
Key activities in the meeting will therefore be:
- To explore factors that are causing stress to relationships in the foster family or residential placement. This will include what is happening for the child and the impact on their feelings and behaviour; the experience of their carers and birth family and any other issues that may be impacting on the current situation;
- To consider the strengths of the placement that need to be acknowledged and built on, including the parenting capacity of the carers; birth family and robustness of the professional and other support network;
- To seek solutions to support the carers and child, by identifying the necessary resources required to address feelings and behaviour and support the placement to become more stable; or
- To clarify if a planned disruption is in the child's best interests;
- Where placement support meetings are being utilised on a regular basis the agenda can be adapted to the specific needs of those children but the principles will remain the same.
5. Record of the Meeting
The meeting must be recorded on the Placement Support Meeting Form on Eclipse. Practitioners may find it helpful to write the record of the meeting directly to the child. Key questions that it would be helpful to consider include:
- What do me and other people in my life think is happening for me?
- What are people worried about?
- What's going well?
- What support might help?
- How will everyone know this is working?
- Is there any help that I need that can't be provided just now?
- When will we get together to review this?
- If I need to leave my foster family how will this be planned for?
- What will me, my carers and family need to support this ending?
Recording should ensure that a child looking back on their records will be able to understand what was happening in their lives and how decisions were made. Efforts should be made to capture the views of the child, their family, and carers. Records should take account of the MIRRA principles (see Recording Policy for Children's Social Work). The records for a Child in Care should always contain an up to date chronology.
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