Professionals

What’s it like to be a fostering social worker?

The social worker in the Family Placement Team

We are grateful to M. Bosch-Nevado for this insight into the challenges and frustrations of working as social worker supervising foster carers.

What do I do?

There is a misconception among children’s social workers that fostering social workers don’t work that hard and just drink tea all day; I find that very annoying.

As a supervising social worker for fostering, we must build relationships with foster families; we get to know their household and their own children. We are there to support them all, although we may deal with the female foster carer more than with the male carer. We know the family well and we are in a position to comment on how a child/ren described in a referral may or may not, fit into that specific family.

We work out by the information that we are given from the duty and community teams, who the child may settle with the family, whether the carer can manage transport to school, contact for that child with their birth family and siblings and, most importantly, whether this family can meet their needs, in relation to the needs of other children placed there, ethnicity, transport, eating habits, bedroom space, etc. Sometimes colleagues will be stuck for a placement on duty, but they won’t be aware of the layout of a carer’s home. This can make the difference as to whether a child is placed with in-house carers or an independent agency.

Due to the lack of carers in the local authority, we have to place this children with private agencies at a huge costs for the local authority. I feel frustrated that agencies make money out of child protection issues. The government have a duty of care to all children and these companies should not exist. These private foster carers are motivated by money and not because they want to care and look after the most vulnerable children.

How do foster carers feel?

I also get to understand the frustrations that foster carers have, when working with local authorities, like when their views about a child aren’t taken on board. Some feel that they are not treated as professionals and some others complain about the multiple changes in social workers for both them and the children. One of my carers was concerned that, when she spoke to a social worker about her foster child’s wishes not to attend contact with his birth family because of the distress that it was causing him, she was told to encourage him to go and not to be silly. She explained she had done this, but the boy was adamant he didn’t want to go. The relationship between the adults became strained as the foster carers felt that the social worker was suggesting they had influenced the boy’s decision. This was a difficult for them, and for me supporting them through it.

Foster carers often feel angry that, despite being told they are professionals and part of a wider team, they are not treated as such. They feel that some social workers view foster carers as ‘glorified babysitters’ and don’t share all the appropriate information with them. How can they care for the child appropriately if they have not got all the information about the child? How can they protect, manage and support a child through the difficult times? After unsuccessful attempts to reach social workers, foster carers will often speak to the social worker’s manager or, if they feel they are being dismissed, will ask me to deal with it.

Many carers I’ve supervised become disillusioned with the system and social workers who state, during meetings and visits, that they will do things or make referrals to CAMHS, Counselling or any other agency, but then do not do it. One child had to miss a holiday due to a passport application not being completed on time, despite assurances from the social worker that it had been ‘sent off’. What is this message give to the child and the Foster Carer?

The pressures of the role

A colleague who joined the team recently from the duty team told me, “they think that the fostering and adoption teams do not do much, have endless cups of tea and have the perception that the social workers who enter these teams are winding down their careers”. Indeed, there weren’t many younger members of staff on that team. Thankfully, things are different in my team there is a range of workers – different ages, experiences and backgrounds.

She said that she used to think that too, but not anymore. She said that “I’ve done more weekends and late nights on this team and taken more work home with me than I had on duty”. Children’s social workers seem to lack awareness about our role; there have been many occasions where they’ve been confused by my presence at meetings.

Due to the high numbers of children coming into care, we feel pressure to complete assessments of foster carers as quickly as possible. This is difficult to manage, because of the in-depth nature of assessments and the other demands of our role: running ‘skills to foster’ training sessions, completing CWDC workbooks with carers, running support groups, duty tasks, completing initial visits and managing our own training and development, attending team meetings, event days to try to recruit more carers, often working evenings and weekends. There aren’t enough hours in the day, especially if you’re part time, like me. I wonder if there really is such a thing as a part time social worker!

It is still common to encounter incredulity from children’s social workers when you say you are very busy. I feel children’s social workers should receive more training about fostering and our role. Many will have children placed with foster carers and if they received helpful advice about what they should avoid doing and what information they should share, and with whom, there would be better relationships all around.

A day in in my work life looks like this

8.30am – I arrive at the office and look at my drop, to see if I have been left with any new initial visit files. I print off all the relevant paperwork for the day’s visits and a placement planning meeting. I also check and respond to any urgent emails and messages.

9:30am – I visit the home of someone who is acting as a referee for one of the foster carers I’m currently assessing.

11am – Placement planning meeting for a one year old child at the home of the foster carers. Both foster carers and a social worker from the child safeguarding team are present. No paperwork has yet been provided to the carers. As a priority, I informed the social worker that she needs to provide the foster carers with medical consent for any routine health checks or appointments the child may need.

12.45pm – I no time for lunch because I have to do all the recording in the computer about the visit to the referee, the planning meeting, and some recording that I left to do last week. I create a placement information record on the local social care system, then return calls to foster carers and social workers. I also have a chat to my manager about our upcoming disruption meeting. On a good day I make a point of trying to take a fifteen minute lunch hour, but this is a rare event.

2pm – Disruption meeting. This is a difficult process for foster carers and occurs when placements end abruptly without prior planning. In this instance, the carers asked for their foster child to be moved on. The placement had worked for several years but the carers were struggling to manage the child’s increasingly difficult offending behaviour.

4pm – I speak to the carers following the meeting to give them reassurance and support. I collect the child’s belongings they have brought to pass on to the new carers.

4.15pm – I set off to a supervisory visit with another of my foster carers. I’d have liked to catch up with my manager after the disruption meeting but I was running late.

4.45pm – Supervision visit. The carer is worried about a foster child with complex needs who has been with the family for the past seven years. The girl is now a teenager and issues around online safety, vulnerability and sexual activity are causing concern. I suggest strategies to help keep the young person safe and assure the carer that a social worker has made a referral to a family support worker who can undertake direct work with her. The young person also has ADHD and the carer is concerned about her level of concentration. I suggest speaking to a CAMHS nurse about the dosage of medication and arrange an appointment to discuss emotional health.

6.00pm – I set off home. My first appointment might be visiting a family where a child has recently moved in – most of my visits involve just a short drive When a child is first placed with an adoptive family, the support they receive is fairly intense, but as the family gel together we gradually reduce our involvement if things are going well.

7.30p – I have to go out to do an initial visit to a family that are interested in becoming foster carers. I get back home at 9.15pm, absolutely exhausted and not looking forward to tomorrow.

How is the system doing?

Key points from recent discussion from the Guardian Social Care Network about the child protection system and how it is faring. Some examples of what said are below:

Misrepresentation of Social Work

Andrew Webb, president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services: “I agree entirely with the comments about us needing to understand and promote sucess in working with children at risk of harm. But I still get very frustrated by the lack of sustained access for the sector to promote this in the face of all the presumptions about how our systems are failing so many children.”

Building trust between families and the authorities

Cathy Ashley, Chief Executive of the Family Rights Group: “What can make a difference is access to specialist independent advice and advocacy – with advisers who can assist families to navigate the system and consider what is in the child’s interests and what would work, without fear that that the adviser will judge them or has power over them.”

Improving liaison between different organisations

June Thoburn, professor of social work, University of East Anglia: “Working across agencies and professions works best when a ‘team around the family’ approach is used, and that works best when child and family social work teams combine family support and child protection work and are locality based.”

David Niven, of David Niven Associates: “All serious case reviews talk about failures in communication between agencies – this is true but I believe it’s compounded by massive restructuring in most organisations, partly due to the austerity measures, and so the people in different agencies that are meant to liaise with each other now frequently have never met so there is no relationship to built on.”

Carol Long: “Some local authorities already have a multi-agency safeguarding hub or similar which, if they are working effectively, show great promise in identifying cases where children may be at risk. ”

Sue Woolmore, chair, Association of Independent LSCB Chairs: “Local safeguarding children boards have a role to play in creating a culture of information sharing which puts the needs of the child at the centre, rather than allowing workers to feel inhibited by threats of legal action/data protection/confidentiality. This is no easy task and is a real test of how child-centred the system is willing to be.”

Who should I trust? Advice from a family law barrister.

This is a guest post by family law barrister Lucy Read, who writes the Pink Tape blog.

Read a review of her book ‘Family Courts without a Lawyer’ here.

The importance of good advice

If social services are involved with your family or wanting to remove your children one thing you need is sound advice. There is lots of information out there on the internet, but not all advice is good advice, and general guidance does not always translate into a plan for what you should do in your own individual circumstances. Some things are universal but your family and your exact situation is unique.

The most important thing is to get information and advice before taking any rash actions. You don’t have to follow the advice you get, the decisions are up to you – but first listen to what people who know the system tell you.

If you are a parent and social services are talking about going to court or about removing your children you will be able to get free legal advice, and representation in court through legal aid – it doesn’t matter what your income is or how difficult your case is. If you are a family member such as a grandparent caring for a child you may also get free legal advice and representation – but this is generally not automatic and will depend on your finances and how strong your case is.

Most legal aid lawyers act for parents and children in these kinds of cases as their specialty. So they know a thing or two about what works and what doesn’t. If they advise you on a course of action think very carefully about what they are saying before disregarding it. If you don’t understand why they are advising you to do something – ask them. A good lawyer should explain why they are advising you to do or not to do something.

Your lawyer acts for YOU and takes your instructions

Your lawyer is just that – your lawyer. They are independent of social services and will fight for you. But a part of their job is to advise you if something is hopeless or very unlikely to succeed, and to explain why pressing for a particular thing might make things worse. You need to know what your chances are before you go into court. So don’t be upset if they tell you something you don’t really want to hear – think seriously about what they say.

Your lawyer must act on your instructions though – so even if you decide not to accept their advice they will still argue your case for you. Do not worry that just because they have given you advice you don’t particularly like, or that you hope is overly pessimistic, that your lawyer is not on your side. They should be frank in private about your chances, but when in court or in negotiations will present your case and your arguments in the best light, putting forward the best points and challenging the evidence for you. They are used to having clients disagree with their advice, and will not be offended if you say you’d like to take a different course of action.

There are some restrictions on how far a lawyer can press a case for you – they can’t mislead the court by telling the judge something they know is not true, they can’t argue something that in their professional opinion is wrong in law or completely unarguable (they can still argue a weak case though), but it is ultimately up to them not you to decide how to run the case to give you the best chance of success – sometimes this means they won’t mention things that you think are important because they aren’t relevant or aren’t going to be as helpful as you think. But apart from those things your lawyer will run your case based on your instructions. If you think your lawyer is not doing this you can change your lawyer, but do think carefully about doing this because it can be difficult to get your legal aid transferred to a new lawyer’s firm and this can cause delay.

Most family lawyers are pretty good at what they do, but of course there are some that are not so good. It’s best to talk to your lawyer if you think they aren’t fighting your corner – they should be able to explain to you why they’ve adopted a particular approach in court, so it’s best to clear up any potential misunderstanding before rushing off to another lawyer.

Be wary of some sources of information

There is a lot of material out there on the internet about other people’s cases, some about cases which have gone wrong, or where social services have been criticized – some of it may be very frightening for you. You might feel like you should run away or that you shouldn’t trust social services. Don’t panic and take decisions based on what you read online – read it by all means, but ask your lawyer about it and how it applies to your case. And then, make your decisions.

Some information on the internet suggests that legal aid lawyers are “professional losers” who advise their clients not to oppose removal of their children, or who even agree to it without their clients instructions. It generally makes no difference to your lawyer financially whether you agree or don’t agree – there is no financial advantage in pressurising you to agree to settle something – a shorter hearing is usually paid less than a longer one. I’ve already explained that your representative must act on your instructions, even if they are foolish. It is your lawyers job to encourage you to make sensible decisions that are most likely to achieve your long term goal of keeping or getting back your children, but if you insist they must take the course of action you instruct. If they refuse to act on proper instructions your lawyer is committing professional misconduct and you can complain or change lawyer. I can’t say this never happens but in 11 years I have never been involved in a case where this has happened.

There is also some material on the internet and in the press that suggests or implies that there is a widespread corruption or conspiracy amongst social services or that social workers cook up allegations in order to snatch children from loving homes just so that they can be adopted, and that this is somehow for financial reward. I don’t think that is true, and the evidence for it is very weak : I think, based on my 11 years of experience of dealing with these cases and acting for parents, social services and children, that sometimes some social workers get things wrong, and sometimes some social workers make up lies or paint a misleading picture, and sometimes some social workers are too quick to suggest removal or adoption of children. Which is why you need a lawyer to guide you through the process. Ultimately you will have to make up your own mind about these sorts of things. Be sure to put yourself in a position where you have enough good quality information to assess those claims before jumping to conclusions or freaking out.

All family lawyers know that social services don’t always get things right, and they also know the best ways of demonstrating that to the court. But although you may not agree with everything social services say about you, usually there is some legitimate basis for their concern even if they have exaggerated or mixed things up or painted a misleading picture. You do need to address the points that they have got right rather than just deny everything.

Listen to what other people are worried about

Every case is different, but almost always your best chance of keeping your children or of getting them back is to listen to the concerns that are raised – really listen – think about whether the people raising those concerns might have a bit of a point, and think about what you can do to reassure people or to change things. It’s okay to say you’ve got things wrong in the past and that you haven’t been a perfect parent, but you do need to reassure people that things will be different in the future and show them why. It’s also okay to say that social services have got things wrong, but you’ll need to explain and show them where they’ve got it wrong. Burying your head in the sand, being angry or rude, or running away may make social services – and the court – more worried about how your children can be kept safe.

So. Listen to what social workers are saying even if you don’t agree with them. Get some legal advice and think about that advice before acting on it. Come to court and if you can, follow the advice of your lawyer about what you need to do at court and between court hearings, to give yourself the best possible chance. Base your actions on good information rather than on the advice of people who don’t know all the facts about your family or on your own emotions. And take responsibility for your own decisions.