Kinship care

Parental responsibility is sometimes referred to as PR. Any person with parental responsibility has a duty to the child in their care to:

• provide a home for them
• protect them
• ensure their wellbeing
• ensure their welfare
• discipline them
• choose and provide for their education
• agree to their medical treatment
• look after their property

Some kinship carers hold parental responsibility for the child and some do not.

When the Local Authority becomes aware that a child’s main carer(s) is unable to provide them with safe and appropriate care, and the child may need to be brought into Local Authority care, it must explore whether any member(s) of the child’s family and friends’ network could provide care in the short or longer term. The purpose of a viability assessment is to determine whether the relative(s) or friend(s) can provide care for the child. 

A social worker will arrange to meet with you to complete the viability assessment. Discussions will take place around whether you are able to take on the full-time care of the child, potentially on a permanent basis. It would be important to explore whether this is something that you want to do. 

If you feel able to make this commitment, different permanency options will be discussed – these usually include kinship foster care and special guardianship, see different types of kinship care.

As part of the viability assessment, your consent will be requested to contact other agencies to see if they hold any information which might be relevant to the assessment, this includes local authority and police. 

The viability assessment is intended to be a first step in the assessment journey. It is not a full assessment but will confirm whether a more detailed and lengthy assessment should be completed. 

The social worker will ask questions to explore your relationship with the child, your own history of parenting and family and your motivation for caring for the child. 

Regulation 24 is part of The Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010 and relates to the immediate placement of a child with relatives and friends not previously approved as foster carers. It allows for a Senior Manager within Children’s Services to agree to a relative or friend being temporarily approved as a kinship foster carer, whilst a full assessment is completed. This decision can only be made following completion of a viability assessment. 

The timescale for completing the full assessment is 16 weeks. This timescale can be extended for up to eight weeks (maximum 24). Within this period, the Local Authority would need to complete a full assessment and present to fostering panel. A social worker would complete the full assessment with you and talk to you about this process in lots more detail, answering any questions you may have. You would also be allocated a supervising social worker, to support you in your new role as a kinship foster carer. 

You would be supported in the same way a mainstream foster carer is, the allowances and benefits/support offer can be found here. 

Special Guardianship is when a person holds a Special Guardianship Order for a child under the age of 18. 

Special Guardianship offers an option for children needing permanent care outside their birth family. It can offer greater security without absolute severance from the birth family as in adoption. A Special Guardianship Order can only be made by the court, following a full assessment being completed. 

Applications for Special Guardianship can be made privately (without the involvement of the local authority) or within public law proceedings (with the involvement of the local authority) and will depend on the individual circumstances. 

• where the child is in the care of a local authority, anyone who has the consent of the local authority 
• a foster carer with whom the child has lived for at least one year immediately preceding the application, whether they are
• supported by the local authority in making the application or not 
• anyone who holds a Residence Order or a Child Arrangements Order for the child 
• anyone who the child has lived with for three out of the last five years, so long as the child did not stop living with them more than three months before they make their application
• anyone who has the consent of all those with parental responsibility for the child 
• a guardian of the child (for example, a guardian appointed after the death of one of the child’s parents)

 A foster carer can only apply for a Special Guardianship Order if the child has lived with them for at least a year, without the local authority permission. 

If the child has lived with the foster carer for less than a year the Local Authority must give permission for the carers to apply for a Special Guardianship and this needs to be a recommendation of the Looked After child’s review.

 If the carer is a relative of the child they can apply for a Special Guardianship Order once the child has resided with them for six months. 

Anyone who does not meet the above criteria would have to apply to the court for permission. You can apply in your own right without a solicitor if you choose to. 

All prospective Special Guardians must provide three months’ written notice to their Local Authority of their intention to apply to be a Special Guardian. The only exception to providing this notice would be when another application in respect of the child is being heard in court and it is decided by the court that a Special Guardianship Order should be made instead. Within Luton, this notice can be given by emailing [email protected] 

Special Guardians have Parental Responsibility for the child and, whilst this is shared with the child's parents, the Special Guardian can exercise this responsibility without seeking permission from the parents. 

There are some decisions about the child that cannot be taken without the consent of the parents or, (if the parent/s do not consent) without the permission of the court. These include: 

• changing the child’s surname
• removing the child from the UK for more than three months
• situations where the consent of everyone who holds parentalresponsibility is required by law, for example, consent to a childbeing sterilised or circumcision of a male child
• and giving consent to the child being placed for adoption or adopted 

If the permanency options for the child include Special Guardianship or kinship foster care, the local authority would complete a full assessment. Within Luton, we complete this assessment using the CORAM BAAF Kinship Care Assessment (Form K) England template. An assessing social worker would work through this assessment with you and answer all questions you have. 

The assessment will include: 

• consideration of the current and likely future needs of the child
• an assessment of your parenting capacity and ability to meet the child’s current and likely future needs. This includes ability to protect the child from any current or future risk of harm
• checks and references including DBS check, references from people that know you well, medical information, employment references, local authority checks and other statutory checks
• an assessment of the proposed contact arrangements and the support needs

Generally, Special Guardianship assessments should be completed within a minimum of 12 weeks and kinship fostering assessments should be completed within a minimum of 16 weeks. Sometimes, the assessment will consider both options and make a recommendation for both at the same time.

You may also be invited to attend training opportunities to support you in your role.