This practice note is intended to highlight the importance of permanence planning for looked after children placed with kinship carers. It is informed by practitioners and managers in kinship care who are engaged with KCASS Practitioners Forum (KPF), and the experience of kinship families shared through the KCASS Advisory Group and Helpline on how permanence decisions impact kinship families and the support they receive now and in the future.
In Scotland, when practitioners are tasked with carrying out an assessment of kinship carers when a child is placed or there are plans to place a child, these assessments usually are the only tool used for assessing the capacity of the kinship carer to care for the child permanently. What we have heard is that there are variations in approaches to assessment and in planning, reviewing, and supporting permanence in kinship care. Alternatively, in foster care and adoption in Scotland, workers use a similar standard of assessment, planning, review, and support and are guided by good practice guides.
From discussions at the KPF, it is clear that each local authority has its own thresholds, processes, and standards. At KCASS, we hear directly from kinship carers on the Helpline how these variations have a negative impact on kinship families and the support they receive. Looking into the future, it would be important when considering permanence planning for children in kinship families that a consistent assessment framework would lead to a fairer experience for carers.
In 2018, AFA Cymru in Wales was funded by the Welsh Government to produce a guide for kinship practitioners that addresses some of the complexities of assessing and supporting kinship carers who go on to care for children permanently. AFA Cymru (2018) has also developed good practice guidance to support those who obtain a Special Guardianship Order. This includes a detailed support plan to ensure that these carers continue to have a line of support from the local authority even after legal permanence has been achieved. This practice provides a level of consistency in assessment, review, and support for kinship carers.
In England, they also have their own national framework for assessing kinship carers. They also have a system for planning support for special guardians.
In ‘The First Day of Forever’, which has been made by Centre Co-Director Professor Judith Harwin, in partnership with CoramBAAF , special guardians speak out about how unsupported and isolated they felt. It highlighted those special guardians found they needed support in the following areas before and after legal permanence had been secured.
Although the legislation is different in Scotland, most of the points from the study were also highlighted in a Scottish study by CELCIS (2020) ‘The highs and lows of kinship care’. Therefore, it is important that practitioners consider that even though legal permanence has been achieved, kinship families may still need additional support and that kinship families are aware of how to contact or stay connected with services so that any interventions are provided at the earliest point. Clear and detailed support planning would allow for this.
In 2020 following the Independent Care Review and the development of The Promise, there was recognition that kinship families, just like adoptive or foster families may need ongoing support regardless of the legal route or arrangement. Highlighted is the need for practitioners to become more trauma-informed and to recognise and validate that children in kinship have experienced trauma and childhood adversity as have children who live in fostering and adoptive families and have the same need for protection, support, and careful consideration of how they will be supported to recover from trauma now and in the future.
Historically, the use of the term “permanence” was not considered in a kinship context and usually confined to adoption or permanent foster care, perhaps because kinship care was seen as primarily a family arrangement rather than one made by the state. This view has since changed with the increase of formal kinship care in Scotland in the past decade.
National statistics for looked after children are provided by the Scottish Government. In 2010, there were 3,172 children and young people in formal kinship care and by 2020, this had increased to 4,456 children and young people. (Scottish Government, 2020)
Research of outcomes for children living in kinship care has highlighted the positives of these permanent family arrangements:
(Aldgate and McIntosh, 2006; Broad et al, 2001; Farmer and Moyers, 2008; Hunt, 2009, Hunt and Waterhouse, 2012; Selwyn et al, 2013; Wade et al, 2014)
The Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 and Kinship Care Assistance (Scotland) Order 2016 both recognise the need for permanence in kinship care through Kinship Care Orders, helping to promote kinship as a permanent option for children in Scotland. However, as we will go on to discuss, it is not just Kinship Care Orders that can be sought to achieve legal permanence, and it is important that both carers and practitioners seek legal advice to ensure the correct legal route is chosen in the best interests of the child.
It is sometimes difficult to clarify when exactly children living in kinship care are legally removed from their parents due to the nature of the family dynamics, families responding to crisis and providing safety and the child may have been living in a shared care arrangement before becoming accommodated or may have been cared for by various family members. Good practice would be to clarify the date of accommodation within the means of a planning meeting or family meeting preferably before the accommodation or shortly after the child has moved to live with the kinship carer. The meeting should include the parents and the child if possible and set out the care plan and resolve any immediate legal, practical, or emotional support that the carer, child, and parent may have.
Kinship carers need time to adjust to caring for a child they may not have anticipated living with them full-time or permanently. They may need support to understand the plan for the child, as well as information about their needs, any risks, and what support can be offered. In addition, kinship carers will need to know what support will be offered to the parent (often a relative), what has to be achieved before the child can return to their parent’s care, the timescales, and the plan should this not be achieved.
When a child has experienced bereavement or abandonment, it may be noticeably clear from the outset that the child will not be returning home and permanence plans may need to be more urgently addressed with kinship carers from the outset.
From discussions at the KPF, it is clear that in many local authorities Care Planning or Review meetings for children living in kinship care are not always happening routinely. Care planning is part of the Looked After Children (Scotland) Regulations 2009 and Part 2 Regulation 5 is clear that the local authority must have a Child’s Plan 5—(1). Following an assessment made under Regulation 4, the local authority must prepare a plan to be known as the “Child’s Plan” in respect of the child. This is also part of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014: Part 5 section 33 puts a requirement on local authorities to have a Child’s Plan.
For those children placed on a voluntary arrangement under S25 of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 as looked after children, they are legally subject to the same legal processes and regulations as children placed on a Compulsory Supervision Order from the Hearing. The child has the right under the Looked After Children (Scotland) Regulations 2009 to have a Child’s Plan and for this to be reviewed. With S25, the birth parents have the right to withdraw consent at any time which could potentially mean a child being returned without an in-depth assessment of need. In line with The Promise that aims to keep families together, it is important to review those children subject to S25 agreements and consider if attempts can be made to reunify children with birth parents with support.
Good practice suggests that local authorities have regular planning meetings for children living in kinship care, have a current Care Plan, and will regularly review the plan along with the kinship carers support plan. At the 6-month review stage, good practice would guide us to consider whether the child should be registered for permanence and legal advice sought. Local authority procedures will then guide the planning process.
Whilst delivering the Permanence and Care Excellence (PACE) programme, CELCIS discovered that care planning systems were designed for children living in foster care. Despite the majority of looked after children now being placed in kinship families, most did not have a robust care plan in place or timescales for permanence. CELCIS also found that whilst some authorities had kinship permanence processes, there were many that had no formal decision-making forums and/or recording of when the permanence decision was made.
Once a decision is made that a child will not be returning to their parent’s care and should be registered for permanence, as the diagram below demonstrates (CELCIS 2021) there are four routes to permanence for looked after children in kinship care. Local authority legal services should provide legal advice following detailed information on the child’s needs, on which route would be in the best interests of the child. Kinship carers should also be encouraged to seek independent legal advice themselves.
For many children, a Kinship Care Order will offer them consistent, safe, long-term care which can meet their needs. A Permanence Order can also be considered where this would be in the child’s best interests and the legal tests can be met. This means that the child would remain a looked after child and continue to have the support of a Care Plan, regular review meetings, and support from the team around the child.
Adoption is rare within kinship families due to the carer often being the child’s relative. Kinship carers usually do not want to legally become the child’s parent, changing their relationship or in some way replacing the birth parent who may be their child or sibling. However, there are situations where a parent has died and where the child is cared for by an aunt or uncle/family friend and adoption may be a suitable route to permanence. This will again depend on the individual circumstances of the child and family.
A Compulsory Supervision Order made by a Children’s Hearing does not offer legal permanence for children in kinship care as children remain subject to regular Hearings where conditions of contact and residency can be changed at any time. Therefore, as part of the permanence process, it is good practice for professionals to obtain legal advice for each child going through the permanence process and fully consider the legal routes to achieving permanence in kinship Care.
Once a Kinship Care Order is granted, it is good practice to create a support plan and for this to be regularly reviewed. AFA Cymru have developed an example of a support plan for special guardians and can be accessed via their website. The support plan should be individual to the kinship family but as a minimum, should include the following;
sco-support-plan-first.pdf (afkacymru.org.uk)
This note highlights that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to permanence in kinship care as each child’s needs and each family’s circumstances are unique. If access to support will change for kinship families by obtaining a legal order, they must be made aware of this so that they can make informed decisions about the future. This note identifies that more attention should be given to fully considering legal routes to permanence, adherence to policy timescales, processes, and to the needs of each child and kinship family. Support Plans must recognise the trauma children, young people and families in kinship care have experienced and within child and carers support plans, anticipate the support they may need now and in the future.
Anne Currie, Kinship Care Consultant
September 2023