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Shared Care Network answers, on average 100 policy-type queries each
month. These queries are dealt with in a number of ways. If the query
is fairly straight-forward it will be dealt with by a member of staff.
If the query is about current practice is may be sent to either the
Regional groups or to members of the Policy group. The scheme
requesting the information is usually sent the responses from a number
of sources.
The
responses do not necessarily represent the official views of Shared
Care Network. Over the years, Shared Care Network has been asked for
information on a range of core issues. Some of these issues are dealt
with in the recent publication, All Kinds of Short Breaks (Carlin,
Morrison, Bullock and Nawaz, 2004). For ease of access information on
these issues is now on the website. Please also see our Policy page
1. Where should short break services be placed in the service structure?
2. How do the patterns of visiting and reviews for short break placements differ from foster care placements?
3. Do allowances paid to carers affect their benefit?
4. Do carers pay tax?
5. Should schemes approve extended family members as short break carers?
6. Can short break carers also register as family placement carers for adults?
7. Is there a minimum age for befrienders / sitters/ carers?
8. What references and checks should we undertake for short break carers?
9. Do short break scheme staff need to make unannounced visits?
10. Are children using short breaks 'looked after?'
11.
If a scheme is managing both an overnight short break service and a
sitter service does the scheme need to register under both the
fostering and domiciliary care standards?
12. How do we set our rates of pay?
 
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1. Where should short break services be placed in the service structure?
The following answer is based on information contained in the
publication All Kinds of Short Breaks: Within local councils short
break schemes are generally either placed within the fostering/family
placement teams or as a part of the disabled children's social work
teams. In a few instances, such as the short break scheme in Leeds,
they are separate from both fostering and disabled children's teams.
The
following explores some of the advantages and disadvantages of the
various models. Each area should adopt a model which is most
appropriate to local circumstances and will give families the best
possible services, in other words the arrangements should be effective
in achieving good outcomes. The issues which should be considered are:
- Co-ordination of services to families
- Equity of services across a geographical area
- Separate identity for short break services
- Successful recruitment, appropriate training and good support of carers
- Expertise and knowledge
- Support of short break staff
Part of a fostering/family placement team Advantages: - Short
break staff benefit from being able to easily access information and
expertise around issues relating to all foster carers, such as
assessments, legislation etc.
- Many fostering teams have a
specialist in recruitment or marketing and short break schemes can
benefit from well resourced professionally run recruitment campaigns.
- Fostering / family placement teams are often well resourced in terms of budgets for recruitment.
Disadvantages: - It
is often difficult to establish and maintain a separate identity around
short breaks, their purpose and the differences between short breaks
and mainstream fostering.
- the short break scheme may be
staffed by a lone worker, who can become isolated within a team where
everyone else is involved with full-time placements.
- some
workers are required to run the short break scheme as well as carrying
out work with mainstream foster carers. They report that the short
break scheme suffers, as the immediate pressures associated with
emergency fostering placements take precedence.
- Where there
is no specific named worker responsible for short break services -
certain disability specific issues may be overlooked. For example, risk
management, individual behaviour plans, specific training on child
protection and disability or invasive procedures.
- there is a
risk of short breaks being seen as a luxury service, that has to take
second place to mainstream fostering, when staff or resources are
limited.
- there may be limited management knowledge/experience
about the differences in nature between short break schemes and
mainstream fostering services.
- there may be limited management knowledge about disabled children.
- there
may be some resistance to move beyond the 'traditional' fostering remit
and short break workers may find it impossible to develop a broader
selection of services, such as sitting, befriending or day care.
Part of a disabled children's Social Work team Advantages - access to the disabled children's Social Workers' expertise and knowledge about disabled children.
- colleagues with a clearer understanding about the ethos of short breaks and the benefits to all of those involved.
- increased opportunities for effective communication between short break scheme workers and the 'placing' Social Workers.
- An
opportunity for all services for disabled children to be managed within
the same unit. This will lead to greater co-ordination of assessments
and services.
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Disadvantages - The short breaks scheme would get neither
the benefits of working with fostering colleagues or disabled
children's Social Work colleagues.
- Workers can become very isolated in a small team and separated from the their family placement and social worker colleagues.
Part
of a fostering service that is split into recruitment & assessment
workers and supervising workers. Some local councils have separated
their fostering teams into one team that carries out all the
recruitment and assessment of all foster carers (including short breaks
carers) and another team that receives new carers once they have been
approved at panel. Within an authority this may be an efficient way of
working, enabling people to become specialist in their particular area,
but some workers have also expressed concerns, as follows:- - The
recruitment team tend to concentrate on finding mainstream foster
carers and do not appreciate that short breaks carers may respond to
very different publicity material and require different preparation.
- The
supervising short breaks workers have not had the benefit of getting to
know the applicants during the preparation or assessment process and it
can take longer to build up a relationship of trust.
- The role
of supervising short breaks workers is less varied than when they were
involved with recruitment as well, which some workers can find
restrictive.
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2. How do the patterns of visiting and reviews for short break placements differ from foster care placements?This
answer has been taken from the information contained in the publication
All Kinds of Short Breaks. Children who receive overnight short breaks
come within the Looked After Children System and therefore the services
they receive must be reviewed as follows:-
- Within 3 months of commencement of the placement, with subsequent reviews at intervals of no more than six months
Local Authority Circular 95/ 14 (August 1995)
In accordance with Local Authority Circular 95/14 the child's Social
Worker is responsible for visiting the child in the short break
placement to ascertain whether the placement is in the child's best
interests. The requirements for the SW to visit the child in placement
are as follows:-
- The first SW visit is required within the first seven overnight stays or before the first review whichever is sooner.
- Subsequent visits should take place at intervals of no more than six months.
Local
Authority Circular 95/ 14 (August 1995) The frequency of reviews and
visits for short break placements are different to that for children
looked after in long-term foster care. Following lobbying from Shared
Care Network, the regulations regarding placements were amended in
1995. A reference to these regulations is given at the end of this
question.
Local councils are required to report to the
government about the number of child care reviews that are carried out
on time (every 6 months), including reviews for disabled children who
receive overnight short breaks. If the child is receiving overnight
short breaks and does not have an allocated Social Worker, there is
still a legal obligation to carry out 6 monthly child care reviews. In
these circumstances the Social Work Service Manager or Team Manager
becomes responsible for ensuring that the reviewing requirements are
met.
The review should be arranged by the child's Social
Worker, rather than the carer's link worker. It should be chaired by an
Independent Reviewing Officer. (The latest guidance from the DfES is on
the SCN website). Where the short break service is contracted out to a
voluntary organisation the review should be chaired by the Local
Authority, not the voluntary organisation. This is not a task which can
be delegated to a voluntary organisation in a partnership agreement.
The basic principles of children's reviews are:-
- Holistic Reviews.
The review should take account of all the different services that the
child or young person receives and review these within one holistic
process, rather than having numerous reviews for each separate service
received. In some areas, child care reviews are carried out in
conjunction with the child's statutory education review, where the
parents choose this. This can lead to a fuller picture of the child's
life for all those attending, but may not always be the family's
choice, as they may not want all aspects of their child's life
discussed by everyone at the review.
- Consulting the child or young person in preparation for their review.
All children can communicate and show whether they enjoy or do not
enjoy an activity. It is vital that all young people are fully
consulted prior to each of their reviews and it is the responsibility
of their Social Worker, to ensure that this happens. There are a number
of consultation tools/formats that have been developed for consulting
with disabled children, such as the Leeds City Council Short Break Care
Review - Children's Consultation Form and the Children's Society 'I'll
Go First' Pack.
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Children who do not use language to communicate can have their
contributions to reviews presented in another form, such as photographs
or a video of them participating in different activities or stickers
that demonstrate their like or otherwise of different aspects of the
activity.
The review involves the young person, rather than it being something that is done to the young person.
There may be advantages and disadvantages to the child or young person
attending their review in person. Some young people will make it very
clear that they do not wish to attend the meeting, others may want to
be present. The important issue is that the young person has been as
fully involved as possible in the preparation for the review and has
the opportunity to comment on anything that is discussed during the
review. Advantages of attendance - the young person
may be able to contribute directly to the discussions about their care
and let the meeting know what they think; they can respond to
discussions that arise during the meeting.
Disadvantages of attendance
- a formal meeting can be daunting for the young person, particularly
if the adults are not experienced in making the meeting relevant to
young disabled people. Unless handled well the young person's
attendance can become tokenistic, with the 'real' discussions taking
place before or after the meeting when the young person is not present.
Family members may want to discuss topics at the review that it would
be unsettling for the young person to hear in that forum. Adults are
not always honest with the young person about how much weight will be
given to their views - there is often the balancing act between the
wishes of the young person and the needs of the parent to have a break
from caring.
Reviews for children receiving day care only.
Children who receive day care short breaks only, are not currently
required to be reviewed according to statute, however good practice
would dictate that regular reviews of the services received, are
carried out. Where the child has an allocated Social Worker, they
should facilitate these reviews, however this role may more
appropriately fall to a short break scheme worker if there is no Social
Worker involved with the family. The same principles apply to service
reviews as statutory child care reviews HMSO. 1995. The Children
(Short-term Placements) (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 1995.
Statutory Instruments 1995 No. 2015. London: HMSO. Click here for more information.
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3. Do allowances paid to carers affect their benefit?
Where short break carers are paid an allowance ie. they are not
contract / fee-paid / salaried carers their allowances can affect their
benefits. Fostering Network produce information on how fostering
allowances affect entitlement to various state benefits, and copies can
be ordered from their website at The Fostering Network - www.fostering.net
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4. Do carers pay tax?
Information is taken from the publication All Kinds of Short Breaks.
Since April 2003 individuals who provide foster care services (this
includes short break carers) are subject to a foster care tax
exemption. The Revenue Policy Section of Inland Revenue define foster
carers as those who:- - Receive income from providing foster care, and
- Are approved as foster carers by a recognised agency
How does the exemption work? Short break foster carers
- if their gross receipts from foster care do not exceed their
qualifying amount in a tax year, they will be exempt from tax on their
income from foster care. The qualifying amount is made up of two
elements, to be added together:- - A fixed amount (£10,000 per household for 2003-4), plus
- An
additional amount per child for each week, or part week, that the
individual provides foster care. For the year 2003/2004 the amounts
were £200 per week for a child under 11 and £250 per week for a child
11 or over.
On this basis, the majority of short break
carers will not be liable for any tax, as they do not receive anywhere
near £10,000 per year. Short break carers are required to register with
their local tax office, as a short break foster carer, even if the
allowances paid to them keep them under the taxable limit. Good
practice requires short break schemes to provide each of their Carers
with an annual record of all payments made to them during a certain tax
year. This enables the short break carer to accurately calculate their
qualifying amount. Short break foster carers who offer multiple links and professional carers
(who receive a retainer as well as payments for each child's visit) may
need some guidance on the tax exemptions, as they may be liable for
some tax. They should seek advice from their own accountant or directly
from the local Inland Revenue Office.
The Inland Revenue
have also introduced new 'simpler' ways of calculating any tax that
they may be liable for. For further information on Foster Care Tax
Exemption see the Inland Revenue Help Sheet IR236, available at www.inlandrevenue.gov.uk Salaried Carers and Sitters employed on a sessional basis will be taxed at source through the PAYE system, as with all other employed staff. Payments made to carers or sitters who are classed as self employed are taxable because monies earned outside the home are classed as income and are liable to tax in the normal way.
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5. Should schemes approve extended family members as short break carers?
Within mainstream fostering 'kinship caring' ie. children placed
formally in foster care with family or friends has become an
increasingly popular option. Research conducted in 2001 by Bob Broad at
DeMontfort University found that their were 8,000 children cared for by
family and friends within the fostering service, the majority of these
are extended family members approved as foster carers.
A
report from Fostering Network (2004) states that 17% of all carers are
"family and friends'' Not all family carers are paid the same as other
foster carers , this is an issue highlighted in the report
produced by Fostering Network. The other trend that should be
considered is that family, living outside the disabled child's
household can now be paid via direct payments to care for a disabled
child who is related to them. Initially close family were prohibited
from being able to be paid via direct payments as the assumption was
that it would undermine the informal family network and support
systems. This was altered as practice developed and showed that for
many disabled children using the extended family network was often the
only and most appropriate solution.
The trends in
mainstream fostering and in direct payment schemes are likely to impact
on short breaks. Some schemes feel that being paid to care for a family
member could be exploited by some families , although having to go
through the rigorous assessment and training process should be
sufficient to rule out that argument. There are other family members
who would willingly care for a disabled relative, but financially this
may be difficult due to additional costs whilst that child is staying
with them, thus finance may be a genuine barrier. It is important
that clear boundaries are drawn up within any short break placement
contract, so there is a difference between what extended family members
may do as paid carers and what they do as family members.
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6. Can short break carers also register as family placement carers for adults?
There is no legal reason why carers cannot offer placements to both
children and adults. Where a carer has been offering short breaks to a
young person and they wish to continue to offer a placement once that
young person becomes an adult, whilst still offering other short break
placements, this must be seen in a positive light in terms of
continuity and the needs of the disabled young person. However, both
the Adult Placement Scheme Regulations (Reg.13) and Fostering
Regulations state that there should only be three adults or children in
placement at any one time.
It is therefore important
when placing both children and adults with the same carers to look at
whether the carers can meet the needs of both the children and adults
at the same time. The placements of both children and adults with the
same carer is more a matter of good practice in terms of how the needs
of all those in placement at the same time are met and how the
individuals get on with each other. Both placing agents should be party
to discussions about placements. Where carers are offering placements
to additional children through direct payments, the number of children
staying with the carer must be taken into consideration as a matter of
good practice.
7. Is there a minimum age for befrienders / sitters/ carers?
This issue should be looked at in terms of what a scheme is asking a
carer or sitter or befriender to do and the amount of responsibility
they are taking on. Generally most schemes only accept carers over the
age of 18 years and similarly with befrienders or sitters. Under the
Fostering Services Regulations, people over the age of 18 living in the
household are required to undergo a Criminal Records Bureau check
(27(5b)) However all young people will be very different and some will
show a much greater level of maturity than others.
A
typical example will be siblings of a disabled child or the children of
short break carers - who may be ready to take on the responsibility of
caring for a disabled child at a much earlier age than their peers due
to their life experience. Schemes may also wish to take into account
whether the person is working on their own, on a one-to-one basis or
working as part of a group.
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8. What references and checks should we undertake for short break carers?
Information taken from the publication All Kinds of Short Breaks.
Fostering Services Regulations (2002) state that schemes should
interview at least two people nominated by the prospective carer to
provide personal references. The regulations also require that all
adults, over the age of 18 years, living in the carer's household have
an Enhanced Criminal Records Bureau check carried out. (In Northern
Ireland all persons over the age of 10 undergo POC checks under the
Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults NI Order, 2003) In
practice, a number of additional checks are made.
The
number and diversity of these varies from one area to another. Many
local councils have introduced additional checks across the board - in
their adoption and fostering services, which will then include their
short break schemes. The appropriateness of some of these additional
checks has been questioned by short break services because they do not
always appear to be relevant to the short break task. The most common
additions are checks with Social Services, health and NSPCC. Some
schemes are required to interview or take up references from
ex-partners, particularly where there is joint parenting of the carers'
children. Others are required to make checks with the schools attended
by the carers' children, and obtain references from employers,
particularly where prospective carers are employed in a child care
role. There is a far greater awareness of ensuring that more
independent verification is provided of the information given by
prospective carers. In addition, prospective carers are required to
undergo a medical check.
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9. Do short break scheme staff need to make unannounced visits?
Evidence from the latest national survey of short break services
indicated that Standard 22 (English - National Minimum Standards
for Fostering Services) is causing difficulties for many short break
services. The standard states: The fostering service is a managed one which provides supervision for foster carers and helps them to develop their skills
The guidance interpreting this standard goes on to state: 22.6
......There are occasional unannounced visits, at least one each year.
The latest information which Shared Care Network has received from the
CSCI takes the view that unannounced visits are concerned with the
supervision of the carer, and is not about the supervision of the
child's placement.
An unannounced visit gives an
additional opportunity for the social worker to see the quality of care
being provided by the carer and address any issues of concern.
Unannounced visits do apply to short breaks, though there are factors
that inspectors need to consider in applying this standard. Some Short
Break carers may only care for a child occasionally, it would seem
appropriate that the unannounced visit should only take place when the
carer is working as a short break carer. Providers need to make a
decision how they can most effectively utilise their resources to
achieve good outcomes for children and young people, and there may be
circumstances where it has been assessed that an unannounced visit is
not practicable, as short break carers may only offer the placement
occasionally.
In these circumstances inspectors
should look at what else the service has put in place to achieve the
outcome of this standard, which is about effective supervision of
carers.
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10. Are children using short breaks 'looked after?'
Although Shared Care Network are aware of a number of authorities who
have recently taken the decision that children who receive short breaks
(ie. less than 120 overnight stays per year) will not be regarded as
'looked after' The advice which the DfES has issued states that if a
child stays overnight with an approved foster carer they are required
to be regarded as 'looked after' (In Northern Ireland short breaks are
defined as less than 90 overnight stays per year)
11.
If a scheme is managing both an overnight short break service and a
sitter service does the scheme need to register under both the
fostering and domiciliary care standards? The latest guidance which
Shared Care Network have received from CSCI takes the view that if a
scheme is set up to provide two services, namely a fostering service
and a domiciliary service, the scheme needs to register as both a
Fostering Service as well as a Domiciliary service. However, if foster
carers occasionally care for children in the child's own home this
would be seen as the fostering agency discharging its functions in
accordance with section 4(4)(a) of the Care Standards Act and would
therefore not be regarded as Domiciliary Care.
The
fostering standards are assessed to be a sufficient method of assessing
the quality of the provision of the service in the homes of the
children for short occasional periods, and the CSCI will not insist on
Domiciliary Care registration. Providers would need to ensure that any
additional requirements from the domiciliary standards that are
relevant would be met.
12. How do we set our rates of pay?
The rates of pay to short break carers vary considerably across the
country. The latest national survey (2005) indicates that the payment
rate for an overnight stay varied from around £30 to over £100. Some
schemes offer different rates dependent on child or young person's age,
whilst others may pay additional allowances for children with complex
health needs or children with challenging behaviour. We can therefore
only give some guidance on the factors that schemes need to take into
account when agreeing a rate.
The most important factor
is that a rate should be set at a level where a scheme can effectively
recruit or attract new carers and maintain existing carers. The rate
should be at least the same as that offered by fostering in a
particular geographic area. Rates will vary according to geographic
area - higher rates of pay in London and the south compared to the
north of England. The other factor that will have an increasing impact
on rates of pay is the introduction of direct payments for disabled
children. If a person was employed by parents to care for a disabled
child using direct payments, they would be paid on at least minimum
wage levels. This is considerably higher than fostering allowances.
Therefore direct payments may become an attractive offer to short break
carers, if they feel exploited by a very low rate of allowance.
So,
although there is no single answer to the question of rates of pay -
the important factor is the market forces - rates should be set at a
level which makes offering short break care an attractive and
worthwhile option - even though most carers do not offer placements
'for the money'.
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