My Placement may be Breaking Down

Placements ending in an unplanned way nearly always leave all those concerned feeling bad. Your Supervising Social Worker will want to work with you to make sure that everything is done to support you with children and young people living with you and to manage difficulties.

When you are struggling, use your support mechanisms to help you to find a way forward.

However, not all foster care placements work out. A Learning from Endings Meeting is arranged when a placement ends before it was supposed to, and are used to:

1. To ensure there are no outstanding issues that should be addressed as part of ongoing placement planning for the individual child;
2. To capture any learning that would support improved practice, by understanding the circumstances that led to the ending & how the same situation could be prevented from arising again, for the child and for the carers.

This process replaces the previous ‘Disruption Meeting’ process.

A Learning from Endings Meeting can also occur when Children’s Social Care feel the placement is no longer meeting the child’s needs or you decide that you are no longer able to care for a child or the child decides they do not want to stay in the placement.

It is vital that for whatever reason the placement ended, you make the move for the child as positive as possible. When endings are unplanned, the welfare and well-being of the child is paramount and your Fostering Service should support you to act at all times with this in mind. It is also important that the needs and feelings of other children living in your home are taken into account.

The information obtained from the Learning from Ending's meeting will be sought and reviewed by the child’s IRO. These meetings may be held a little while after the actual disruption so that some of the immediate feelings of upset have reduced. They will consider all aspects of the placement in an attempt to understand what happened.

Everyone involved will be encouraged to speak freely and express their views so that the child’s IRO reviewing the information can establish:

• An understanding of why the ending occurred;
• To identify any outstanding work to ensure this is completed;
• To contribute to the future planning for the child;
• For in-house carers, to consider if an early Foster Carer Review is required;
• For agency carers and residential provision, to identify if there are issues that would impact on further use of this resource by the authority;
• Where appropriate, foster carers should be supported to maintain links with children who leave their care. This process should consider how this could be achieved;
• Learn from what happened and avoid the same thing happening again - for the child/others in your home;
• Identify the positive work and good experiences for the child amongst the difficulties;
• Support all parties involved and help them carry on and recover.

Learning from Endings Meetings can sometimes feel threatening, but it is important to recognise that their purpose is not to blame anyone but to reach a better understanding of what happened, including whether more support should have been provided. Most carers who have been through a placement breakdown have found these meetings helpful.

Who may attend:

• The child;
• The parents;
• The child's social worker;
• The team manager for the allocated worker;
• The link worker/keyworker (for residential care) and/or home manager;
• The foster carer(s);
• Supervising social worker;
• The child's independent reviewing officer;
• New foster carer(s);
• Other relevant staff/professionals/family members as identified by the child, social worker and or allocated IRO.

How the information gathered will be shared:

• The IRO will feedback to the child, by letter/email (and where appropriate in person) by answering ‘you said – we did’ and supporting the child (depending on their age and level of understanding) to understand the reasons for and be supported with managing their transition;
• The IRO will feedback to carers and family members by letter/email outlining any outstanding actions that have been identified as part of the audit;
• The IRO will share a brief report with professionals outlining the outstanding actions identified as part of the meeting.

The report of the Learning from Endings Meeting may be presented to the fostering panel.

A Looked After Review should also be arranged.

A review may be held to look at your approval terms.