Placement Planning and Disruption Meetings

1. Placement Planning Meetings

Placement Planning meetings should be convened as part of the process of identifying and placing a child - as set out in the Placements in Foster Care Procedure and the Placements in Residential Care Procedure. The first Placement Planning Meeting in relation to a placement should be held before the placement. Where this is not possible because of the urgency of the situation, it should be held in order that the Placement Plan is prepared within 5 working days of the start of the placement.

Further Placement Planning Meetings should be held at intervals agreed with the manager of the residential home or the foster carers and their supervising social worker - or as required for example where there are issues to be resolved in relation to the day to day arrangements for the placement.

The social worker and home manager/foster carers supervising social worker will agree the best format and venue for the meeting and who will chair the meeting.

The people listed below should contribute to the meetings:

The child's social worker and/or other professional associated with the child e.g. personal adviser or advocate;
The child;
The child's parents;
For children in residential care, the child's link worker/keyworker and, where appropriate the home manager;
For children in foster care, the foster carers and their supervising social worker.

Before any meeting, the chairperson should obtain or be updated on the following, if available:

The child's Placement Plan (recorded on the Placement Information Record on ICS);
Any work which has been undertaken in supporting the child's placement;
If relevant: the child's care plan, personal education plan and pathway plan.

Where the proposed placement has the effect of disrupting the arrangements made for the child's education and training - see Supporting the Education and Promoting the Achievement of Children with a Social Worker, Looked After and Previously Looked After Children Procedure.

Where the proposed placement is out of area, see Out of Area Placements Procedure.

The chairperson should also ensure that the child, parent(s) and others who have been asked to contribute understand the purpose of the meeting, how it will be conducted and are given the opportunity to put their views and suggestions.

If children are not settling into their placement, or if there are concerns about the suitability of the placement, consideration should be given to the following:

Whether it is possible to sustain the placement until the next looked after review by, for example, providing additional support to the placement;
Bringing forward the date of the next Looked After Review;
Ending the placement.

2. Disruption Meetings

1. Aim and Scope

Children and young people are placed with foster carers within BwD in either short term or long-term arrangements. The child’s care plan will determine how long a child is expected to be cared for by foster carers. For many reasons, occasionally long-term placements end and unlike with adoptive placements, there is no legislation or guidance which governs the disruptions of these arrangements within the UK.

At BwD, we are committed to ensuring that all children and young people achieve permanence, this includes young people in post sixteen provision. We recognise that there are circumstances beyond the control of children, carers and supporting professionals where unplanned endings occur. However, it is essential that every effort is made to avoid this outcome, wherever possible.

It is acknowledged that there are influencing and contributing factors which lead to a placement ending. As a result of the unplanned ending/disruption procedure, it is hoped that we can learn from each incidence of disruption or unplanned ending, to enable us to inform future practice with children and carers.

2. Disruption/unplanned Ending

Disruption

A child’s permanent care arrangement is said to have disrupted if it ends prematurely, in simple terms, if it is a change to the child’s agreed care plan.

The arrangement can also be considered to have disrupted if the carer has given notice on a placement which is agreed and the carer requests that the placement end with immediate effect.

Unplanned ending

An unplanned ending is deemed to have occurred when a child/young person’s short-term arrangement ends prematurely, where they are not matched long term or where a change of placement has not been agreed as part of the child/young person’s care plan.

Unplanned endings and disruptions can occur due to social work or other professional concerns, a foster carer requesting an end to a placement where no notice period has been given/agreed or the child/young person requests that the placement end.

3. Placement Stability Meetings

In cases where there is concern for the stability of a home of a child, this should be identified and addressed at an early stage by the relevant professionals via a multi-agency placement stability meeting. This meeting should discuss the issues pertaining to the difficulties within the placement and agreed actions should be put in place to support/maintain the placement.

An emergency placement stability meeting should always be held where there are worries that a placement is at risk of disruption. The child’s Independent Reviewing Officer (IRO) should also be invited to these meetings.

4. Resettling a child in an emergency – Unforeseen events

The ending of a child’s placement should be a decision made at a statutory review as part of the agreed change to a child/young person’s care plan. However, on occasion, emergency placement moves are necessary if the foster carer is unable to continue with the arrangement or if there is a risk of significant harm to the child/young person or others. There should always be consideration given to whether the care arrangement can continue with additional support and every option explored in its entirety.

The decision to end a placement must consider the child’s wishes and feelings where a move is necessary. This should wherever possible be planned, allowing for transitions to take place between the child and the new carers.

Where decisions are made against the wishes and feelings of the child, this decision must be adequately recorded on the child’s case record.

Luggage

Children moving on must be provided with adequate luggage by the carer, such as holdalls or suitcases to put their belongings into. Arrangements must be made by foster carers, supervising social workers and social workers to ensure that all children receive their personal belongings, this will include important documentation such as birth certificates, passports, and bank account details. There should be no items that are kept by the carers.

Children and young people must not be made to transport their personal possessions in carrier bags or bin bags, this stigmatises children and portrays the image that their personal belongings are associated with rubbish. They should have their own luggage and not borrowed unless there are exceptional circumstances to explain this.

Maintaining links between children/young people and their former carers

In most circumstances, foster carers should be encouraged to mark the move from their home in a way for the child/young person to say goodbye to the family.

Where this cannot happen due to safeguarding concerns, there should be an appropriate narrative of this recorded on the child’s record to be shared with them later where appropriate.

Children and young people may have developed strong attachments or bonds with their carers, and the carers’ family and it is important that there is careful planning to maintain positive contact between the child and carers. This can assist the child or young person in resolving any negative feelings they may have developed because of the placement breaking down and may promote positive outcomes for the current placement.

The supervising social worker and the child/young person’s social worker have a vital role in being both the conduit and facilitator, supporting communication between the child/young person and carer where required.

5. Disruption meeting

When a placement has ended abruptly or on an unplanned basis a disruption meeting should be convened within four weeks unless a LADO referral has been made, then it should take place within five working days. The need to hold a disruption meeting should not delay the LA in putting in alternative arrangements to meet the child’s needs and offering support to the child/young person.

When endings are unplanned, the welfare and well-being of children remain paramount. The needs and feelings of other children living in a foster/residential home will also be considered.

For children whose adoptive placement disrupts, a Disruption Meeting must take place - see Disruption of Adoptive Placements Procedure.

The child’s social worker will complete the referral and include all people that need to be present including contact details and email address from the list below including essential and desirable attendees;
Email the referral to Panel Admin- panel.admin@blackburn.gov.uk;
Panel Admin will contact the lead IRO’s and arrange the meeting and include all contacts noted on the referral form;
An Independent Reviewing Officer (IRO) will chair the meeting and Business Support will provide a minute taker;
Panel Admin will email SL for QA of minutes;
Minutes to be sent to attendees and put on child’s file as a case note;
SSW to add minutes to foster carer file as case note.

Those invited, or asked to contribute, should be:

Essential

The child;
The child's social worker and/or the team manager;
The keyworker (for residential care) and home manager;
The foster carer(s) and supervising social worker;
The child's independent reviewing officer;
Virtual School;
LAC school nurse/Health representative;
Revive;
Advocacy.

Desirable

The birth parents;
The child's current carers;
Other partners need to be taken into consideration if appropriate.

It is important that the meeting is chaired and managed in a way that does not present blame and is a safe space for all attendees to air their views and appropriate discussions take place to inform learning going forward.

If anyone, who is thought to have an important contribution, cannot attend the meeting, they must make arrangements to speak to the chair of the meeting beforehand.

Children and young people for whom a disruption meeting is taking place, must be encouraged to speak to their social worker/chair of the meeting about how they can become involved.

If children are to participate in the meeting, they must be appropriately prepared to do so. They will need to be made aware of the purpose of the disruption meeting and who has been invited to attend. They will also have opportunity to speak to the chair prior to the meeting. The chair must consider if it is appropriate for the child/young person to attend part/whole of the meeting.

For those children/young people who do not wish to attend, they will be made aware of the ways in which they can make their views known, including via advocacy or the MOMO app.

The precise agenda will depend on the child/circumstances, but the chairperson should ensure the circumstances leading to the disruption are carefully reviewed, and that all concerned are provided with opportunities to express their views freely with a view to establishing:

How and why the emergency/disruption occurred;
Identify strengths;
Impact upon the child;
Reflection on the relationships within the home;
To learn from what happened and avoid the same thing happening again - for the child or others in the placement;
To contribute to the future planning for the child;
To identify if work is to be done and to ensure it is completed;
To ensure that appropriate notifications and other post placement arrangements have been undertaken.

In relation to the disruption of a permanent foster placement, where the foster carers are in-house approved carers, consideration should be given to holding an early Foster Carer Review to consider the foster carer's approval.

In preparation for the meeting the IRO should ask the supervising social worker/allocated social worker for the following information.

Who assessed foster carers/residential placement?
Were there any significant issues identified throughout the assessment?
What was the matching process, was the child/young person’s care plan considered?
How many children have the carers looked after?

6. Distribution of minutes

The minutes of the meeting must be checked by the Chair. They will then send the minutes to Business Support to distribute to all those that were invited to the meeting.

Minutes must be sent out with the caveat that any omissions, factual inaccuracies, or misrepresentation of any individual/agency reviews, should be reported to the Chair within seven working days of the receipt.

A copy of the minutes must be recorded within the documents on Protocol on the child’s record and the foster carer’s record where relevant.

The minutes must also be sent to the following people.

Service Lead, Placements;
Service Lead for the relevant social work team CIOC/Safeguarding;
Service Manager, IRO & QA;
Commissioning Service.

The Fostering Team Managers will keep a record of all the disruptions in foster care, including the statistics of the number of disruptions and meetings held.

The IRO service will also complete an analysis of the actions and learning from the disruption meetings as part of their Quality Assurance.

7. Management Review

Following the disruption meeting, the chair will ensure follow up to all learning points identified within the disruption meeting.

The SMART actions which are agreed within the disruption meeting should also be followed up at the time of distribution of the meeting minutes.

Any follow up actions required by someone who was not present at the meeting, must be agreed verbally with the recipient and followed up as per the procedure.

If there are any disagreements about the actions identified, this must be raised with the Chair in the first instance.

For all permanent placement disruptions, where matching is identified as a contributory factor, consideration should be given to sharing the information with the Permanence Panel for their learning and action, as necessary.

8. Monitoring and quarterly analysis of disruptions and unplanned endings

If there are significant concerns regarding a placement disruption, the following should take place.

Notification sent to relevant Heads of Service with consideration made for presentation at permanence panel.
For Local authority residential homes, disruption meeting minutes should be sent to the commissioning service.
For independent providers, (fostering and residential), meeting minutes should be overseen by the fostering area manager and placement commissioning team with a view to the feasibility of future placements.

Quarterly analysis/data analysis of disrupted placements (where a disruption meeting has been held) should be undertaken by the Service Lead for Placements.

The data for quarterly analysis should include.

A record of the number of disruption meetings that have taken place;
The number of disruption meetings that have not taken place and the reasons why;
Participation and attendance;
Key themes, patterns and trends emerging from Disruption meetings;
Analysis and effectiveness of placement stability meetings.