Fostering Devon Newsletter 18/08/17

Fostering and Adoption Redesign - Supervising Worker Allocation Changes

As you will be aware, under the service redesign we will need to reallocate supervising social workers for some foster carers. This is to ensure workers’ caseloads reflect the geographical area that their team covers. Please find below the guidelines we will be using when we decide how to allocate workers to carers. Reallocation of workers will be a gradual process, and wherever possible we will try and ensure handover meetings take place with the current and newly allocated worker.

Supervising Social Workers will continue to support, assist, guide and have supervisory responsibility if the Foster Carers are in the process of retirement/resignation. However careful consideration on case to case basis will be given to in the event of the following:-

•  In the process of adopting or applying for a Special Guardianship Order for a child in their care or in the process of adoption

•  Embarking or taking part in the adoption transition phase to a forever family of a child in their care

•  Whilst in the LADO process

•  If practice issues have been raised and an Action Plan has been agreed

We need your help again please!

Do you have any additional capacity to foster?

We met at Foster Carer Strategy Group on Monday 14th August and discussed the current situation with our in-house sufficiency.

In June we had the highest number of referrals ever recorded with 139, which is significant when we compare it to the first three months of this year which averaged 78 per month.

This comes at a time when our in-house availability is very low. Out of 438 approved places as of last Friday we had 14 vacancies across Devon, with most of these being for the younger age groups. This gives us a vacancy figure of 3.2% which is the lowest it has ever been.

When we discussed this on Monday, several of the carers present said that they have additional capacity, and as such we felt it important to ask all of you if you have too.

We would be interested to hear from any of you who could offer additional placements, long-term, short-term, or respite for a limited period of time, and we would consider extensions, exemptions, and changes to terms of approval to enable this to happen where it is considered safe and appropriate to do so.

We had a fantastic response from you all at Christmas when we put out a similar plea, and I wanted to say thank you from the placements team .

If you would like to offer any additional capacity or discuss this further, please  contact me directly, and your supervising social worker, at which point we will be happy to discuss your views.

I can be contacted via email at lance.feldman@devon.gov.uk, or on the placements team number which is 01392 382005 .

We look forward to hearing from you.

Lance Feldman

Save the Date! – Picnic/BBQ for Exeter and East Carers

We are holding a picnic/BBQ on Sunday September 3rd 2017. All carers, their families and the children they foster within the Exeter and East area are welcome to attend. 

This will take place at Deepway Park, Exminster.  The park has a nice big green area for sitting to eat, playing football and rounders or throwing a frisbee! There is a tennis court and a Basketball court. There is also a play park for both little ones and bigger children and a skateboard park! We have permission to use disposable BBQ’s, and the park’s toilet facilities are also available to us. Please arrive for around 3pm, with idea of having the BBQs up and running for around 5pm.  Food will be provided (first-come, first-served!).

If you are planning to attend please can you let Sarah Denton know (sarah_dentonuk@yahoo.co.uk or 07707998518) as soon as possible, so we have an idea of numbers.

Cinema Tickets – Young People in Care Aged 16 to 18 in the Exeter and East Devon Area

The fostering service has fifty cinema tickets to give away to young people in care aged 16 to 18 in the Exeter and East Devon area. These will be issued as e-vouchers (by email), valid for 12 months at any non-London Vue Cinema. They are for 2-D films only. Tickets will be available on a first-come first-serve basis. To request a ticket please follow the following instructions;

1. Send an email with the subject line CINEMA, this must include (1) Name of young person in care (2) Their DOB (3) Name of foster carer (4) Name of foster carers’ worker (4) Address of placement. Email to fosteringassessmentsadministration-mailbox@devon.gov.uk.

2. Only the carer providing the main placement for the young person can apply. If the young person is on respite it should still be the main carer applying please (to avoid duplication).

3. The first fifty applications received that follow these instructions will receive a reply with an e-ticket attached for each of the eligible young person in their care. If you do not receive a reply then unfortunately you have not been successful – our apologies but replies to all emails cannot be guaranteed due to the volume of emails likely to be received.