Examining the Support and Care Provided for Four Children

by eloowah (student)

Felicia hills

Introduction

In this assessment am going to explaining four different cases and am going to be answering question for example how there got there, where there are, who is going to care for them and what are there roles, Who is going to make sure the carers are doing thing right / CRB checks and What activity are you going to take with them, Am going to include the legislation to back up my answers. I will be using names in each situation but there are not real name to protects confidently for the real people

Situation 6 year old girl child

A 6 year old child who lives with a single parent mother, she is addicted to drugs and also an alcoholic who leaves alcohol bottles all around the house. She does not care for her child; she brings different men in and out the house and sleeps with them for money. The mother physically abuses the child she hits her when ever she is in a bad mood. The child goes to school takes off her jumper and she has scars all over her arms, the teacher calls the parents and the mother said she fell so the teacher calls social service, social service pays visit to her house there found the house dirty with empty alcohol bottles all over the house. So base on the evidence there collected social service goes and request for a court order from the court to take the child and put her in foster care and the court agree because there can see the child is in real danger where she is.

What is a foster care/ and what are there roles?

Foster care is where a child goes if there are not safe where there are before so there can look for a safe place till social service finds a permanent place for them. The foster career is going to be the one looking after the child there going to make sure the child is safe and is being educated in line with every child matters and health and safety act 1974. It’s a private home where the child will go and its up to the career if there want to send pictures to the parents, sometimes a family member teacher or even a family friends can foster a child. Foster care is intended to be a short term situation until there found a permanent place sometimes the parents can even get there child back if there prove there are fit enough to look after there child.

Roles of a foster career

A foster career has to provide love, comfort, listening, patience, food, clothing and warmth, and encouraging interests and hobbies. There have to ensuring that the children are cared for in a home where they are safe from harm or abuse. Helping children keep themselves safe from harm or abuse, and to know how to seek help if their safety is threatened. Acting as an advocate for each child, enabling children and young people who are moving on to do so in a positive manner, there are also going to be working with other professional people and contribute to the Departments planning for the child/young person. A very important rule there going to be doing is being willing to meet the child’s parents and family, encouraging regular contact with them to help the child return home.

Receiving, giving and storing information including writing agreements, planning and record keeping. There going to have to communicate effectively with the child for example if a child is having relationship there going to be the new parents of the child and what ever the child tells them the have to keep the information confidential and Make sure the children are getting education, according to ‘Every Child Matters aims to bring about root-and-branch reform of children’s services

At every level to ensure that children and young people achieve five main outcomes. They should:

Be healthy, Stay safe, Enjoy and Achieve; Make a positive contribution and Achieve economic wellbeing’ (department for children schools and families, 11 may 2011). This legislation makes sure that the children are been looked after.

The local authority should make sure the foster career is fit themselves to look after her for example making sure the career has done CRB checks. There should also have someone that comes in to work with her in for example a youth worker because she will need someone to talk to her and help her get her life back to normal. The youth worker can take her out where she can also meet children her age so she can make friends for example a play centre. The child safeguarding and promoting welfare is family history functioning because the young girl has been through a lot with her family so the youth worker has to be aware of that and need to make her feel he/she is friendly.

Evaluation

Am going to be explaining all the points of a foster care home, I will be looking at the positive and the negative and will be concluding my overall point on foster care from researched and what I have seen. Forster is good because it gives children have a safe home and someone to look after them. The children will receive, love, comfort, patience and would be feed. Foster is also a good thing because if there wasn’t any forester career then children will keep getting the same treatment there were getting at home before there left to come into care and some of this treatment were very rush for a young person to take for example sexual abuse physical abuse and even emotional abuse most children who go into forester care have suffered from neglect so there would need to feel wanted again, this is why foster care is so important in a young person life.

The children in foster care are normally very happy to be there because of all the treatment there was getting at home. This is in line with every child matters that the child should be healthy physically, mentally and sexually, staying safe form neglect and bullying, enjoying and achieving, making a positive contribution and achieving economic well-being some foster care will make sure that the child will get all this things and support in a foster. When a child is in foster there will normally be very quiet because wouldn’t want to trust anyone because of what has happen to them in the past. So the career is going to find it very hard to brake that because lack of trust this can sometimes be a very good thing for the foster to speak to the child and want to get to know the child in a personal way so that the child can feel there are home instead of a strangers house.

But on the other hand it can be also a negative because foster care is a short term care so if the child opens up to his/her foster careers and would have to move this will make the next career life ten times harder then it was before because children get emotionally attached and all there have been through to have someone taken a way that they really like it will hurt them and there wouldn’t know how to deal with it so there just not going to trust anyone else. The CRB check is very useful but does not tell the employer 100% about there record because if the employee took a CRB and committed a crime after it will not show up on the CRB because a CRB is updated every 3 years so CRB is not a 100% trusted. Some foster careers already have children of there own so when a child comes in some careers will treat the children all the same but on the other hand some will treat there own children a lot better then there will treat the other child.

Foster care can be a negative because if the child that has been fostered is leading there own child to do wrong there will kick him out and this child will be left alone with no more support and would must likely to turn to crime in the future because to find him another home will be very hard. Social service does not have many foster careers so for every child that gets a home is lucky. My overall conclusion on a foster care is a positive because children are suffering from all types of abuse and would need somewhere to go and be part of a family.

Situation 15 year old residential care home

This is a preview of the whole essay

Situation 15 year old residential care home

Dean leaves with both his parents as the only child, He is involved in a lot of gang activity for example selling drugs (cannabis) his dad physically abuses him everyday, he is also suffering from emotional abuse i.e. mother saying ‘I wish you was never born, your destroying the family’. His parents are always telling him to stop coming back so late, he would leave in the morning and come back in really late at night, so his parents warned him that if he carriers on then there will kick him out. He misses school; teacher’s always call home and ask why he didn’t attend school today. Dean and his father have very physical fights and the mother is unable to stop them so it carries on for hours. He also smokes and his dad found out and said he couldn’t take it anymore so he kicks him out, the mother calls social service to come take him because there are unable to control him.

Residential care home

Residential care is for people who can not continue living in their own home. You can stay in a residential care for a short time or long term until you are 18 and after 18 you will be given your own flat. In a residential you would stay in a comfortable furnished room. In a residential staffs are usually available 24 hours a day. Residential care home normally provides accommodation for up to 25 youth in one building. There each have there own room but will have to share the kitchen and bathroom with others living there. Every residential has a time where all the young people have to be in there rooms so that the care workers know where everyone is at night. If you don’t meet this time you could get kicked out after the second warning.

Who are care workers / what are there roles?

In a residential care home there are normally staffs that live in the building and are available if needed 24 hour a day. The staffs that are going to care for young people in a residential care home are care workers. A care worker will support Deans day to day needs for example making sure his happy in care; there will provide him with a comfortable and safe environment to live in, activities real interest and enjoyment. The care workers make sure he has his privacy and dignity and there will give him support for his physical, spiritual, intellectual, emotional and social needs, the care worker will also make sure Dean get’s his pocket money every week.

Support

Dean will also be getting support from a youth worker. Dean his been through a lot and would need a lot of help for example stopping smoking, he will need cancelling to help him stop, because he has a temper there should get him involved in some anger management group so he knows how to control his temper in the future. Dean is only 15 years old the youth worker should also be working with the parents so he can return home ASAP, there can send them pictures and inform them on the progress he is making. The youth worker should be a youth/ young adult (ages between 18-25 years old) because young people relate more to each other then adults and young people would, he will feel more comfortable as well.

The youth worker should take him out so he can meet other younger people for example a youth club. The youth worker needs to make sure that he is attending school and is staying there till the end of each day this is in line with every child matters because every child has rights to education and need to feel and be safe. The child safeguarding and promoting welfare is family social and relationship because he has been disconnected from his family and this will make him not want to be socially active because he will feel let down because his parents gave up on him so he is going to try test everyone else that comes so the youth worker has to give him time.

The youth worker should make sure he introduce him to everyone because he wouldn’t want to talk to anyone he doesn’t know himself, so the youth worker would need him to get involved in the youth club and with other young people so he is not at home all day, this will help his self- esteem boost up. The youth worker should also do activities with dean for example going out and doing sports he likes for example playing football with him and get him to socialise with others.

Dean should also be giving pocket money because this will teach him self-discipline and for him to learn how to start dealing with money, it will make him think before he spends his money because he might want to buy something that is too much so given his money so he has to learn how not to over spend his money because he is not going to get until the week this will make him think about the more important in life .i.e. food and cloths.

The youth worker can support him on his school home work so he doesn’t feel alone he always has somebody that can support with everything he does. Because dean his been through a lot his going to need a personal help and by the youth worker playing the role of a older brother not a father this will help his life a lot.

The local authority has to make sure everyone that is a care worker has a CRB check before there start working. All the careers must have all the qualification needed and all have received a full training. The local authority can come in to do check to make sure the house is clean and to see if the young people are safe. There should also do a feedback form where the youth people can fill in to see how well the support there getting from the careers is. Local authority should also make sure the CRB is updated every 3 years and the staffs get training every 6 mouths.

Evaluation

Am going to be explaining all the points of a residential care home, I will be looking at the positive and the negative and will be concluding my overall point on residential care from researched and what I have seen. Residential care home has many positive and negative am going to start with positive a residential care home is good because it teaches young people to have responsibility and to look after them from a very young age, there would so learn home to deal with money and ways to spend it. In a residential you have to share the kitchen and the bathroom this will show the young people to share and to wait there turn.

Residential care if very good because all of the young children that are in care have been through a lot and don’t have homes to go to so giving them a home will really help there life that’s why residential is so important. According to Maslow hierarchy of need shelter it at the foundation and if one of the most important he also talks about a child need to have food to live. Residential provides a child with money so there can get food and to buy other things like clothes and bathroom things .i.e. washer gel. A residential care home is good for young people because you have a time when you have to come in this will show them self-discipline there would learn not to travel at night.

A residential care home is good because there live among other young people so there would find it easier to make friends and to socialise. The fact that young children that come in to residential care home are young teenager this is also a positive thing because the careers can start to teach them how to be young adults for example looking after them self, cooking, cleaning a maintaining a clean room. CRB check is very important because this will inform the local authority who to employ or not.

In a residential care home everyone is treated the same because everyone gets there own rooms and have to share bathroom and kitchen this is in line with UN convention on the rights of the child according to this legislation ‘The Convention recognises the human rights of children, defined as any person under the age of 18. It is the only international human rights treaty which includes civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, it sets out in detail what every child needs to have for a safe, happy and fulfilled childhood’. (UNICEF charity online 20ll)

There are also many negative points on residential care home for example a CRB check is not a 100% as well because it only covers records before you did the check and the next check is in three years so someone could commit a sexual case after and still be able to work with children for 3 years before the new one is updated. In a residential care home there are going to be a lot of thing the staff wouldn’t know for example someone could be getting bullied and the careers wouldn’t be able to do anything because there wouldn’t know.

Giving a young person that smokes money every week could be a negative because the fact his got money now this could make him smokes more because the money he will get for his food and cloths he would use to by drugs (cannabis) and this will make him worst then he use to be. In a residential care home the staffs are meant to be available 24 hours a day but after 11pm there are no where to be seen so the young people are left alone to do what there wished.

When you are in a residential care you are allow visitors and the problem with that is the carers don’t know who the friends are and what there are going to do. The friend could be a rapist and could walk in another youth room and sexually abuse them in the care home without the careers having any idea about it while it’s happening. My overall all view on residential care home is a negative even doe the positive plays a big part but is a negative because according to UN convention on the rights of the child the children should be safe and treat equally and allow friends that are not known by anyone is a hazards to the youths that don’t know them friends.

Situation 4 respite care

In this situation am going to be using Lisa as the cover name to protect the dignity of the real person. Lisa lives at home with both her parents; her parents argue all the time. Her dad is very aggressive towards her mother he physically abuses her and also emotionally abuses Lisa by calling her name for example your ugly and I wish you was never born. Lisa is also suffering from neglect from both are parents. Because of the argument Lisa is unable to sleep at night so Lisa always sleeping in class and the teacher asked her why you always sleeping in class, and she said because me mum and my dad fight all night every day and my dad would hit my mum’ so the teacher tells the social service and there said that the child is in danger where she is so there need to move her. So the social service went to visit her home got evidence and went to go get a court order to put her in respite care and the court agreed.

What is respite care?

Respite care is a short-term care service designed to help people take a break or to provide cover in case of illness or emergency. This is available for a minimum of two weeks where an experienced fully trained live in care professional will move into the home and continue the routines and lifestyle of the person being cared for, reducing disruption and anxiety. In this case there will take Lisa away to get the parents time alone to fix there problems. Respite care is often emergency situation for example an illness or family problems to give the families a break from the daily routine and stress. It can be provided in the client's home or in a variety of out of home settings.

There are different types of respite care…

Residential respite care is where the person being cared for goes away to live and be looked after by someone else for a while.

Emergency respite care is where care is provided when someone is cannot fulfill their caring responsibilities due to unforeseen circumstances, such as illness.

Domiciliary care is where support is provided in the home to help out with some of the career’s responsibilities for a few hours.

Day centre care is where the person being cared for spends time at a centre to allow the career to have a few spare hours of their own. (NHS choices, respite care, 09/06/10)

Who are respite careers/ what are there roles?

Respite careers are volunteers. A volunteer is a person who freely offers to take part in going people home to talk to them and is will to undertake a task, also a person who works for an organization without being paid. In this case Lisa is going to have a career coming into her home to help her with the things she needs. Lisa has downsymdrone and she is going to get need a lot of attention.

When I talk about careers I do not mean someone who is paid to provide care as part of a contract of employment, such as a care worker or care staff. Careers are usually people who look after a relative or a friend who needs support and sometimes someone that cares about others because of their age, physical disability, learning disability, health condition, mental health condition an addiction, .i.e. drugs or alcohol for example, a career could be a parent with a child who needs additional help due to a long-term health condition. Any person of any age can become a career.

The roles of a career is there have to be reliable because the local authority has to make sure there turn up when there meant to for example Lisa would need someone to take her to school and pick her up from school, there have to have confidence because there will be talking to her telling her everything is going to be alright. Careers have to be very commitment because it’s a little girl so if you don’t look after her properly its going to make her life worst then it already is. Careers must have self- confidence to be able to deal with others that have low self-esteem, and would have common sense.

The careers roles will include practical, technical, good with hands and problem-solving, Intuitive, creative, imaginative and fun to be with, Quiet, non-judgemental and loyal Because Lisa is going to be living there so the child has to feel at home feel safe and is having fun. The respite careers role also involves working with other people sometimes one volunteer can be looking after more then one person. Careers will be coming into Lisa home helping her deal with everyday things i.e. washing, cleaning and just having fun. Because Lisa has downsymdrone she is going to need a lot of attention so the career has to make sure he keeps an eye open for her. Lisa doesn’t want to stay in the house all day so the career has to do some activities with her for example going to the park taking her to socialising groups with other people that also has downsymdrone.

The career has to make sure that Lisa likes her in order for them to have a positive relationship so the career has to make sure they have a good personality, and have to be very creative so that Lisa doesn’t get bored of her for example always playing new games not just the same games all the time.

The career has to work very close with the parents because the parents would know their child more then anybody, so the careers have to give the parents feedback on how Lisa is doing. the career can also allow Lisa to speak with her parents to keep the relationship with the parents close.

Support

The volunteers will not be alone because Lisa if living with them there the local authority are going to have a specialist who comes in and talks to Lisa about how she is and who she finding where she lives right now. The specialist will be taking Lisa out for example play centre where she can play with other children her age. Because Lisa has suffered from neglect she is going to have low self-esteem so she is not going to want to talk to anyone.

The specialist will work with Lisa to build her self esteem. The specialist should work with Lisa parents so there can stop arguing and fighting remind them what fighting does to the family and if there don’t stop them Lisa will never come back. There should give the parents cancelling and the dad should get support on his anger, there can give him anger management to help him stop.

The local authorities are going to make sure that the volunteers have done a CRB check before there start working because this will let them no who are able to work with people. There will also make sure that all the staffs are fully trained and are ready to deal with people.

Evaluation

In this part of the assessment I going to be explaining all the points of a respite care, I will be looking at the positive views and also the negative views and them I will be conclude my overall point on respite care from researched and what I have seen. Respite has many positive and negative am going to start with the positive a respite care is very good because it helps children with physical disability, learning disability, health condition, a mental health condition and an addiction such as drugs or alcohol. The respite careers there will look after the child and make sure there feel like home wherever there are.

Respite care supports a lot of families who can’t look after their children for the time been and need somewhere their children can live for example Lisa case. Without respite care a lot of families will be broken for example if a child parents are always fighting and the child is in the middle of it then one of the parents hits the child, that’s when social service gets involved and takes the child away but the fact respite care is here the child can be taken away while the parents get help with there problem and the child can come back to a safe home.

Respite care is also very important because it gives the children a chance to stay away from all the noise and to have a peaceful childhood. In Lisa case respite care is very useful to her because her parents are always fighting and she doesn’t know anything that is going on so she would stay in her room this will make her use to the fact of being alone and she will grow up not wanting to socialise with other because she is use to seeing violence and she wouldn’t want anyone to hurt her. If respite care was not around not only will Lisa lose her family she will also not want to be a socialising person.

The fact that respite careers are volunteers it helps because volunteers are people who love to help others for free and most of them love doing what there do you can find that all volunteers have different backgrounds so Lisa might be lucky and find a respite careers who has been though what she has been so Lisa would be able to relate to him/her more and that’s the career their will mostly put with Lisa.

Now am going to be talking about the negative points of a respite care when A CRB check is done its last for three years and it covers you for three years so you can get a CRB done and then commit sexual crime towards a child and still be working with children. And he will still be working with children till that three years is finish.

Even doe Respite care has a lot of positive points of volunteers working as careers it is also a negative because some people will get involved in the programme and be very committed for a time being and later on their might have an I don’t care attitude because there are not getting paid so there wouldn’t want to do it on one and this would make the child situation worst then it was before because if the volunteers leaves then the child is going to grow up not trusting anyone and it will make it harder for the child to return home.

In some cases of a respite care the child will live with the career and because a person has never committed a sexual abuse does not mean there will never do it and if the child is living with them anything can happen for example if Lisa is living with a woman and the woman hits her this will make her believe every adult is the same and this will block her barrier to communication. According to Framework for assessment of children in need and their parents 2000 ‘Securing the wellbeing of children by protecting them from all forms of harm and ensuring their development needs are responded to appropriately are primary aims of Government policy. A framework has been developed which provides a systematic way of analyzing, understanding and recording what is happening to children and young people within their families and the wider context of the community in which they live’.( Department of Health ,4 April 2000) Framework for assessment of children in need and their parents 2000

My overall view on respite care is a positive because even doe there is negative respite care helps a lot of families stay together and help them work. It also helps to make the family stronger. The fact that respite care is only a short term care it will show the family how important there are to each other.

Situation 2 adoption

In this situation am going to be using Mark as the cover name to protect the dignity of the real person. Mark lives at home with his mother and his step dad. The step dad was an alcoholic who did not know how to control his drink, after a while the step father started abusing the mother physically he was always shouting at mark for example when mark is playing with his toys he would shout at him saying he was making too much noise and when he doesn’t we would hit him and this started being an often thing. The step dad had children of his own who he likes and treats better, but mark mother knew what was happening but she didn’t care because she loved the step father to much. The father said he does not want the mark and tell the mother it’s rather me or your child and the mother choose her husband which was mark step father. So marks mother gives mark to social service and agreed for him to be adopted.

What is adoption?

Adoption is a way of providing a child with new legal parents. It ends the legal relationship between a child and their birth parents. Adoptions are arranged by adoption agencies and are made legal by the courts once they are satisfied that adoption is in the best interests of the child. Be eligible for adoption the child must be under the age of 18 years and the child would not be able to return back to his birth parents, if the child is married or has a child they would cannot be adopted.

Adoption order servers all legal ties with the birth family and confers parental rights and responsibilities on the new adoptive family. The birth parents no longer have any legal rights over the child and they are not entitled to claim them back. The child becomes a full member of a new family. They will take the new family surname and assume the same rights and privileges as if they were was the birth parents this includes the rights of inheritance.

A child’s eligibility for adoption

Before the court can make an adoption order, the court has to be satisfied of all of the following:

The child was under the age of 18 when the adoption application was made, the child is not – or has never been – married or in a civil partnership and both birth parents has given their consent to the adoption. In some cases, it is not necessary to get consent from the birth parent or guardian. This happens when the birth parent or guardian cannot be found or is incapable of giving consent or if the child's welfare would be at risk if the adoption order was delayed

Who is going to care for mark/ what are there roles?

‘These are the people who are able to apply to adopt a child:

Single people (irrespective of their sexual orientation) a partner of a parent of the child to be adopted married couples civil partners unmarried couples (same sex and different sex) living as partners in a stable family relationship’ (directgov, adoption 28/28/2011)

Mark will be taken to a new home with a new family where his going to have new parents. His new parents will make sure that he is safe have a home he would be free from any abuse or neglect and is well looked after. The adoption parents will need to embrace mark as if he was there own and would need to value the children’s connections with the family and loved ones. The parents mark gets there are going to make sure there nurture and guide the children’s development there will also going to be handling difficult parenting situations, including lifelong emotional, behavioral, medical or developmental challenges that may result from the Mark neglect loss and separation and provide the Mark with unconditional love and a lifetime of support.

Support

The adoption parents are not going to go through everything on there own because there are going to get support from social service and local authority. The local authority will give there support for example paying for anything mark needs there would give the parents money to get for example food, cloths and any other things he might need and on top of that there would get paid for looking after him. There would also get private nurseries to support with any problem because make is still a very young child and he has been through a lot so the nurse will support him and make sure the rest of his life is normal. The social service will visit the child to make sure the adoption parents are doing what there said there doing.

Evaluation

Am going to be explaining all the points of an adoption, I will be looking at the positive and the negative and will be concluding my overall point on adoption from researched and what I have seen.

Adoption is good because it gives children a safe home and someone to look after them. The children will receive, love, comfort, patience and would be feed. adoption is also a good thing because if there wasn’t any adoption parents then children will keep getting the same treatment there were getting at home before there left to come into care and some of this treatment were very rush for a young person to take for example sexual abuse physical abuse and even emotional abuse most children who go into adoption parents have suffered from neglect so there would need to feel wanted again, this is why adoption is so important in a young person life.

When a child leaves home to go somewhere new it’s going to be very different for them because there are use to there home. But when child have been miss treated at there home there would find anywhere else to find home because everyone wants to be in peace no matter what age you are. Adoption finds children a place there can call new home and have peace. My personal strongest positive view is the fact that the children would have a permanent place to live for example when it comes to foster care it is only temporary but with adoption the child will have a permanent place. Adoption is also very good because there are some people that are not able to get a child of their own but really want a child now there can just adopt a child. According to the ‘Human Rights Act 1998 gives further legal effect in the UK to the fundamental rights and freedoms contained in the European Convention on Human Rights, these rights not only impact matters of life and death, they also affect the rights you have in your everyday life: what you can say and do your beliefs, your right to a fair trial and other similar basic entitlements’. (Direct gov, human right act 17 March 2011)

With every positive there is a negative in the Connor somewhere, am now going to talk about the negative view of adoption. Not everyone wants a child for the same reason as other for example someone that is not able to have a child would treat a child with value the child people there cant get one themselves but not everyone is loving because there is some people who only adopt not because there want a child but because there want money. This is very dangerous because the children that go through adoption has already been suffered a lot specially from neglect and if someone wants a child just for money then there not going to really care about the child. Some adoption parents will take the money that is for the children needs from the local authority and would only use half to buy what the child needs and pocket the rest.

Ref: (NHS choices, respite care, 09/24/05/11)

(Direct gov, human right act 24/05/11)

(UNICEF charity online 20ll)

(department for children schools and families, 24/05/11)

.( Department of Health ,24/05/11)

By Kabba Kamara - -