Safeguarding and Safe Caring
Scope of this chapter
This chapter outlines to children, parents, foster carers and social workers Nottingham City Council’s policy on safeguarding children placed with foster carers from abuse and neglect, and safe caring in foster homes.
Regulation 12 (1) of the Fostering Services Regulations 2011 requires fostering service providers to prepare and implement a written policy, which is intended to safeguard children, placed with foster carers from abuse or neglect, and set out the procedure to be followed in the event of any allegation of abuse or neglect.
The Fostering and Adoption Services requires safe caring guidelines to be produced, based on this policy, for each foster home, in consultation with the carer and everyone else in the household. These guidelines must be cleared with each child’s social worker and be explained clearly and appropriately to the child.
The aims of this policy are to set out the procedure to be followed in the event of any allegation of abuse or neglect and to ensure that all foster homes have strategies in place to meet the following objectives:
- To keep children safe from abuse from adults;
- To keep children in the foster home safe from abuse by other children in the household;
- To keep children safe from abuse by access to inappropriate material, in print, television or video or online;
- To keep members of the foster family safe from false allegations of abuse.
Complaints against carers or allegations of abuse or neglect in foster homes will be dealt with in accordance with our published Complaints Procedure and Allegations Against Foster Carers Procedure.
Safe caring guidelines must be provided and kept up to date for each foster home.
Assessing social workers should ensure that guidelines are produced, based on this policy, during the assessment process. Social workers should ensure that all members of the household are involved in this process and agreement is reached on the final guidelines.
This process should also be used as part of the preparation of applicants. It will present both the social worker and the applicants with opportunities to reflect on their attitude to issues of abuse and how prepared they are to take on board the implications of abuse for both their household and any child they may foster.
A copy of each care's guidelines should be retained on their file by their supervising social worker. These should be discussed with the child's social worker at the point of referral. Consideration will need to be given at this stage to the needs of the child and implication of the guidelines. In some cases it may be apparent that the proposed match is not suitable and an alternative placement should be identified.
The guidelines should be shared with the child, in an age appropriate way, as early as possible in the placement. Ideally, this will be prior to or at the point of placement, but in all cases must be done no later than the placement agreement meeting. In some cases the guidelines may need to be adjusted because of the specific needs or background of the child, and the placement agreement meeting should be used as the opportunity to agree any required changes.
Safe caring guidelines will need to be revised as the circumstances of the household change.
This should be done immediately if there are significant changes such as someone joining the household or if the carer moves house. In such cases the revised guidelines will need to be cleared with the social worker of any child in placement.
The guidelines should inform the risk assessment and this should be considered at the point of every child’s review or placement agreement review to ensure it remains up to date and appropriate.
All families have strategies for day-to-day living. These will vary from family to family and will be more or less formal depending on the circumstances and preferences of each family. In most families, such strategies are unwritten and frequently unspoken. Children learn how the family operates as part of their day-to-day development and generally accept this as the ‘norm’ as they have limited experience of anything else.
Carers need to be aware of the strategies in operation in their household for three reasons. Firstly they need to consider the impact of the way the family functions on a child joining the household. Adjustments are likely to be needed and carers need to think about ways of minimising the disruption to family routines.
Secondly, carers need to consider the implications of their existing strategies for children joining the household. Such children will usually already have experience of family life and the strategies used in their own home may be very different than those in operation in the foster home. Some will come from chaotic households where there are few boundaries and adjusting to a more formal structure could be difficult. Others will come from a very rigid and structured background where they have had little control over their own lives, and adjusting to newfound freedoms may be problematic.
Thirdly, carers will need to identify behaviour or practices within their own household that might be acceptable to them, but will increase risk in a foster home. Some perfectly acceptable routines in families could put both children and carers at risk in foster homes.
All members of the household should be involved in agreeing guidelines, in particular children of the household and if applicable the secondary carer.
While foster care has changed dramatically over recent years, there is still a tendency in couples for one to be seen as the primary carer and one as the secondary carer, and the latter is frequently male.
Often the secondary carer may not attend training or support groups and may not be directly involved in planning meetings or reviews for individual children. This means that they might not have up to date information or be aware of all the issues that need to be considered to ensure safe caring.
Similar issues will apply to children of the household, but for men there are additional considerations. While women or other children abuse some children, the majority of abusers are heterosexual men and most allegations are made against male carers. This does not mean that men should pass all responsibility for fostering to female partners, but rather that men need to be fully involved in working out how to provide care safely.
Developing safe caring guidelines should not mean changing everything that carers do. It is about considering which elements of the way the household operates might put children or household members at risk. Once these elements are identified, carers need to develop strategies that minimise this risk.
It is neither desirable nor the aim of this policy for carers to produce a complicated, rigid set of rules for their household. Guidelines do need to be written down so that children joining the household, their parents, and social workers understand the way the household operates. These should be as brief as possible, however, and only include those elements that will enhance safe caring.
While many of the elements of a household’s safe caring guidelines will be about behaviour and therefore relevant at all times, some will relate to the environment in which the household is at a particular time.
This will usually be the carer’s family home but carers and social workers need to take account of other environments the carer and child may live in from time to time. This will include (but not be restricted to) where the carer and child are going on holiday or where the carer has a second home or the use of a caravan.
Carers and social workers should ensure that the household’s safe caring guidelines remain current and appropriate by reviewing them on a regular basis. This must always be done where someone joins the household and where a carer or other adult begins a relationship with someone who will have access to the household and any fostered children.
Carers and social workers will need to consider a wide range of issues when developing safe caring guidelines. The following are some of these and how they may be addressed. However, carers and social workers should remember that this list is neither prescriptive nor exhaustive.
Carers should avoid the use of the terms ‘mummy’ or ‘daddy’. They are not the child’s birth parents and the use of these terms is likely to confuse the child and can also antagonise or alienate parents. The use of first names is the preferred option.
Most families have words and terms they use to describe parts of the body or bodily functions such as going to the toilet. Carers need to consider the words they use and their potential meaning for foster children. They also need to establish the terms the child uses as soon as possible to avoid any distress to a child who might be finding it difficult to express their needs.
No member of the household should walk around in underwear or nightwear and carers should make sure that all members of the household and foster children have a dressing gown and slippers as well as appropriate nightwear.
The need for affection and reassurance is a basic human need that is of particular importance to children’s development. Unfortunately, the need to balance this with the risk to foster children and carers of affection being misinterpreted makes this a difficult area for carers. While a spontaneous hug to one’s own children fulfils this basic need and serves to strengthen the bond between adult and child, it may mean something very different to the foster child.
It is safer to agree that no one in the household touches another person’s body without that person’s permission. Children should always be asked first if they want a hug and they need to be taught that it is perfectly acceptable to say no.
Games that involve physical contact such as tickling or pretend fighting should be avoided.
Children who are able to bathe themselves should be encouraged to do so and given privacy in the bathroom.
For younger children or other children who have needs that mean they require help in bathing, it is always preferable for a female carer to bathe them. In most cases, male carers should not be left alone to bathe or dress children unless this cannot be avoided.
It may be appropriate to ask an older child if they wish to wear a bathing costume if they need help with being washed.
While sharing of bedrooms is acceptable, each child must have their own bed and space for some privacy (Standard 10.6). In no circumstances should an adult get into a child's bed.
If a child has been abused or has abused another child, then their needs and the needs of all other children will be assessed and the outcome of this assessment recorded before any decision is made to allow the sharing of bedrooms (Standard 10.6).
Where children are to share bedrooms, consideration needs to be given to how each child is afforded some privacy, both for their possessions and their need for personal space.
Consideration needs to be given as to when others may enter the bedroom. Except in an emergency, people should be expected to ask permission before entering the room and older children should be given increasing control over who goes into their room.
Where someone does go into a child’s room, whether they are another child or an adult, the door should always be kept open.
Careful consideration is needed before the use of sending a child to their room as a sanction as for some children this will trigger memories of prior abuse.
As for bathing, it is preferable for a female carer or both a male and female carer to be involved in putting a child to bed and the bedroom door should be kept open.
Many parents allow their own children to share their bed for a variety of reasons - for play, to read or to be comforted. While foster children have the same needs, the sharing of carers’ beds should be avoided. For abused children, such practices may again trigger memories of prior abuse and for any child the carer will risk leaving themselves open to allegations of abuse.
Carers therefore need to find other ways of providing such times of warmth and affection outside of the bedroom. This might be, for example, by reading together on the sofa.
If a child is unwell and in need of comfort and supervision throughout the night, the child may need to sleep on the sofa with the carer in an armchair.
Carers will need to ensure that that they exercise due discretion in demonstrating affection to each other. While this is true for all children, this is of particular importance for looked after children, many of whom may have been sexually abused or witnessed inappropriate behaviour from adults or other children.
Consideration is needed as to where in the house children may play unsupervised.
Carers should ensure that children are kept within earshot and checked on when they go quiet. Children should not normally be allowed to play with other children behind closed doors, although carers will need to balance the need for safety against the need for privacy for older children.
Where children wish to play outside the house, alone or with others, the child’s physical safety will need to be considered as well as the potential risks the child may present to others.
Foster children’s greater susceptibility to bullying or being targeted by a potential abuser will also need to be considered.
Carers will need to consider the appropriateness of transporting children alone in a car, in particular if the child is known to have been abused. If the carer has to travel alone with a child then the child should sit in the back of the car.
As for any child, there will be times when foster children need to be cared for by baby-sitters or other carers while the foster carer is out.
Supervising social workers should ensure that a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check is sought for regular alternative carers. Respite care provided by friends or family of approved carers has a specific process form including DBS checks.
Foster children should not be left alone in the sole charge of a carer’s own child, or used themselves as babysitters for other foster or birth children.
Carers need to be sensitive to the feelings of children and their parents in this area.
Many children and adults will object to having their image recorded on film for religious or cultural reasons and their rights should be respected.
In some cases the use of photographs and/or videos will be an important part of the work being undertaken with the child, for example to help prepare an advertisement for a permanent family or as part of life-story work.
In all cases the carer should discuss the taking of photographs and videos with the child’s social worker before doing so. The permission of the child should also be sought and no child should be photographed or filmed in the bath, in their nightclothes or underwear or undressed.
Contact with birth families and others who are significant to the child is of major importance to looked after children.
There will be occasions when children have contact with people who are known to have abused them and at other times they may have contact with abusers where neither the carer nor the social worker is aware that prior abuse has taken place.
Given that contact often takes place in foster homes, carers will need to devise strategies to manage this in a sensitive manner, but also in a way that ensures the safety of the child. A risk assessment needs to be completed if contact takes place in the carer’s room.
Where the contact needs to be supervised, the arrangements for this should be agreed in advance with the child’s social worker and the carer should ensure that they are able to dedicate all of their time to this task.
Where the contact does not need formal supervision, the carer should nevertheless ensure that they find ways to respect the need for some privacy while at the same time remaining aware of what is going on. Doors to rooms where contact is taking place should be kept open and the child should be kept within the earshot of the carer at all times.
Language, race, culture and religion are integral to every aspect of the service. The needs of both children and carers arising from language, race, religion and culture need careful consideration. They should be carefully monitored at the matching stage and this is promoted amongst foster carers via a training programme.
Attitudes towards gender roles and sexuality will also need careful consideration.
Carers need to ensure that they consider their own attitude to these issues when drawing up their safe caring guidelines and discuss the individual needs of each child placed with the child’s social worker.
Carers who are to foster children with a disability will need to give particular attention to ensuring their protection.
The need for intimate personal care will have major implications for the child and the carer. The child may find it hard to distinguish this between other forms of touch and the carer may be more vulnerable to false allegations.
Communication problems may make it harder for a child to tell and mobility problems will make it harder for children to run away or protect themselves from abuse.
Signs and symptoms of abuse may be missed and put down to the child’s behaviour or medical conditions.
Children with a disability may have less knowledge and understanding about abuse and will find it more difficult to speak for themselves or make a complaint.
Over recent years the needs of carers’ own children have been increasingly acknowledged.
Fostering has a dramatic impact on all members of the household and the adjustments required will need to be carefully considered before a family decide that fostering is right for them.
It will be important for carers to find ways to meet their own children’s needs while keeping all children in the household safe. For example, while birth children may have to come to terms with the fact that it is no longer possible to share their parents’ bed, the carer should find ways of countering this loss by providing their own children with their own space and time to replace the loss.
“Safe caring should not prevent children and young people receiving the care they need. Carers need to find ways of showing care that are not open to misinterpretation or misunderstanding. Experienced carers say that you have to change the way you do things at home and that after a while this just becomes normal and does not stop you leading ordinary lives.” (Taken from ‘Safe Caring’, first published by National Foster Care Association (now known as Fostering Network) 1994).
While potential carers will need to prepare their household guidelines in advance of their first placement, they will also need to consider these afresh (as will experienced carers) in advance of each individual placement and assist in the completion of risk assessments on each placement.
Some of the issues carers will need to consider are:
- How will they explain to the child what is expected of them and other household members?
- Do they have all the information they need to care for the child safely?
- Is the child known to have been abused?
- Do the particular needs of the child mean that the usual household guidelines need to be revised?
- If so, is this achievable and acceptable to all other members of the household?
- What are the most important household rules that must be adhered to, and which are less significant?
- How will unacceptable behaviour be dealt with, whoever displays it?
Fostering services are required to ensure that foster carers’ training covers caring for a child who has been abused, safe caring skills, managing behaviour and recognising signs of abuse and on ways of boosting and maintaining the child’s self-esteem. Improving children’s own self-esteem is one of the most effective ways to enable children to help avoid becoming victims themselves.
Supervising social workers should ensure that they pay attention to the training needs of carers and other members of their household, addressing these in the appraisal of training and development needs, which must be documented in the annual review report.
Social workers should encourage carers to make use of any available training opportunities run by Nottingham City Council or external agencies.
Last Updated: June 9, 2023
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