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Introduction

uNIT 10: cARING FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE P2: oUTLINE THE ARRANGEMENTS FOR PROVIDING QUALITY CARE FOR LOOKED AFTER CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE The different types of provisions that provide care for children and young people are; foster care, adoption, temporary and permanent care, residential care and respite care. Foster care provides children and young people with a secure, safe and stable family environment where they are loved and cared for. Whilst in foster care the child/young person remains in education and have a team of professionals, ranging from social workers to school teachers, working with their foster carer to ensure the child?s health and emotional needs are being met. Foster care is usually short-term, however, it can result in the child being adopted into that family in some circumstances. Children can go into foster care at any age and some foster carers specialise in caring for children within specific age groups. Adoption is when a family make a looked after child/young person a permanent member of their family through a legal procedure. This could occur when both biological parents of the child have died or when parents decide that putting their child up for adoption at birth is in the best interests of both the child and themselves. Families that want to adopt go through lengthy vetting processes to ensure they are able to deal with aspect of caring for a child. Adopting a child takes them out of the care system and children adopted from a very young age have the advantage of forming bonds with their adoptive parents in their early years, although children of all ages are adopted. ...read more.

Middle

It also means that the court will have to interpret the law wherever possible to be compatible with the rights of the child. This Act helps children, young people and their families by affording children the same rights as adults where it is sensible for the child?s level of autonomy. Where a child feels they have been wronged they can choose to take it to court if they so wish. There are many policies and procedures that promote safeguarding children, ensuring their safety in any type of care setting. I know of a situation where a young child was found outside on their own after being able to leave their house unsupervised because their parents didn?t have appropriate safety measures in place e.g. a child safety gate, window locks, locking the front door. The police were called and they picked up the child until they found their home, after talking with the parent of the child the police informed the local social services and reported the incident. Throughout this, the police have a duty to safeguard the child and assess if the child is safe in that situation, they do this by assessing the child physically (are they hungry, clean, dressed) and assessing the home environment and the physical, emotional, psychological health of the parent. If the assessments they make suggest it is not in the child?s or parent?s best interests that the child remain in that situation, appropriate measures would be taken. However, if this was a one-off thing and they deemed the parent capable of meeting the child?s needs and the home environment was suitable there would be support offered to help the parent safeguard their child. ...read more.

Conclusion

* Foster carers have a right to full information about the child. * Children in foster care deserve to be treated as a good parent would treat their own children and to have the opportunity for as full an experience of family life and childhood as possible, without unnecessary restrictions. OFSTED are also the regulators of children in social care and take into account the NMS when they are inspecting foster carers. According to the Association of Directors of Children?s Services (ADCS) the report that OFSTED made this year that more than three quarters of local authorities are not providing a good enough standard of children?s social care is ?simply not credible?. The president of the association Alan Wood said that ?The UK has one of the safest child protection systems in the developed world, yet the results of the Single Inspection Framework inspections undertaken to date suggest that the services of over 70% of authorities are not yet good enough.? With this is mind it can be determined that there are differences in views about the quality of social care provided to looked after children between those appointed directors of children?s services within their local authorities and those at OFSTED who determine the quality that is being provided. I think there needs to be more communication between the two bodies, with the people in charge of providing children?s services having one standard for high quality care and the regulators having another standard it is difficult to determine the true quality of care being provided. I think the two organisations need to work together to agree on a standard of care, to ensure all provisions are meeting that agreed standard and to work together to provide support to those that need improvement or are inadequate. ...read more.

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