Cornerways Fostering Services Limited

STATEMENT OF

PURPOSE

ALPHA B

SMALLMEAD HOUSE

SMALLMEAD

HORLEY

SURREY

RH6 9LW

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

I N D E X

CONTENTPAGE NO

Introduction1

Aims2

Objectives3

Philosophy4

Cornerways Fostering Services Values5

Our Placement Services to Young People5

Recruitment and On-Going Management of7

Cornerways Foster Carers

INTRODUCTION

Cornerways Fostering Services Ltd is established to provide a range of fostering services to children and young people in accordance with the following:

National Minimum Standards for Fostering Services 2011
Fostering Services Regulations England 2011
National Care Standards Act 2000
The Children Act 1989 Guidance and Regulations Vol. 4:
The Care Planning, Placement and Case Review and Fostering Services (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2013
(Guidance) Delegation of authority amendments to the Children Act 1989
(Guidance) Assessment and approval of foster carers guidance

Fundamental to its focus and practice is delivering services to achieve positive experiences, progress and outcomes for children and young people in terms of their health and wellbeing, safety & protection, education and achievements, participation in family and community and preparation towards independence and active citizenship in adult life.

Cornerways foster carers are located in West Sussex, Surrey, South London and the bordering fringes of Kent and Hampshire. These locations enable Cornerways staff to reach manage and support those carers effectively and for those carers to be practically able to meet together for training and carer groups.

The serviceaims to meetand exceed best practice standards outlined in the National Minimum Standards for Foster Care in the recruitment, assessment, approval, training, management and support of Foster Carers and delivery of services to children and young people and their families. Cornerways promotes theinduction and ongoing training and development of Foster Carers and staff to meet children’s needs and to develop the practice of individual Foster Carers and the service as a whole. Cornerways Fostering strives to be a learning organisation that can adapt to opportunities for development and best practice by carers and staffto the ever changing presenting needs of children and young people, the requirements of parent and child/baby placements, and the evolving safeguarding issues facing young people in the community and online.

Cornerways Fostering Services works in association with Cornerways Children’s Services Ltd, an organisation that additionally provides residential child care services and education for young women at CornfieldSchool. All these services are established to complement each other and can provide integrated provisions where this meets individual young people’s needs. Itcan be possible for Cornerways Fostering Services to access education at Cornfield School for young women as part of a fostering & education package to meet a young persons needs. Cornerways Fostering also has a set of values which it shares with Cornerways Children’s Services that make the care of young people the focus of the enterprise.

Cornerways Fostering Services is an Independent Fostering Agency run by the limited company Cornerways Fostering Services Ltd. Company No4745025.

AIMS

The Needs of Children and Young People

Cornerways Fostering Services aims to deliver a service to meet the identified individual needs of boys and girls, aged birth to 18, placed with Cornerways Foster Carers. This can include babies and young children placed along with their parent(s). The service aims to meet children’s needs in terms of theirhealth and wellbeing, safety & protection, education and achievements, participation in family and community and their preparation towards independence and active citizenship in adult life. We do this bycareful matching, following care and placement plans in which we are active participants and monitoring progress while in placement.Where possible Cornerways takes a positive view when young people fostered with Cornerways for several years, wish to remain in Staying Put placements with their foster carers or possibly having a supported lodgings placement with an alternative Cornerways Foster carer.

The Needs of Placing Authorities

Cornerways aims to work with placing Authorities to fulfill Care Plans for children and to ensure that our Foster Carers understandCare Plans and Placement Plans and are supported and supervised to meet them. This includes delivering observations and recordings that can contribute to assessments. Cornerways Fostering aims to establish and maintain effective and enduring working relationships with a number of Local Authorities, providing placements to meet their children’s needs -locally where possible.

3.The Needs of Foster Carers

Our aim is to recruit, assess, train, develop and retain Foster Carerswith skills and potential to care for and promote the development of children, young people and parents with children/babies referred to Cornerways Fostering. Cornerways Fostering aims to provide an empowering and supportive service to Foster Carers which will maximise the quality of care they provide for children, young people and parents with babies. Expectations of carers are high, as are levels of practical and professional support, using Social Workers, sessional staff and other carers or services.

4.Diversity

Cornerways Fostering recognises that Diversity is a feature within the population of Looked After Children and Young People and their families. There is continually emerging diversity as young people needing care arrive as unaccompanied asylum seeking children and as different issues face young people in their growing up years. Cornerways Fostering aims to value and meet diverse needs by recruiting Foster Carersand staff with diverse family, ethnic and cultural backgrounds, diverse skills, knowledge and experience along with a variety of foster carer household styles, locations and household members.Along with diversity within the carer group, is the expectation that carers can and will work with young people who are different to themselves and with young people who may need carers to adapt how they care in terms for example of routines, meals, communication.

5.Regulatory Authority

Cornerways aims to meet and exceed the standards against which the service is inspected. Cornerways aims to operate and be informed by rigorous quality assurance processes including obtaining and utilizing feedback from young people, fostercarers, local authorities other professionals and staff.

6.The Cornerways Organisation

Cornerways Fostering aims to work with other services under the ‘Cornerways’ umbrella when there are children or young people who can benefit from other Cornerways services in addition to a foster placement or who can utilize fostering before, during or following a placement within the residential provision.

7. Working in Partnership

Cornerways FosteringServices aims to build working relationships

and to work in Partnership with other individuals, providers and organizations that can complement and/or enhance the services we deliver to children. This includes resources that our carers pursue such as through library and children’s centres, or that Cornerways identifies as opportunities for staff and carer training and development. Other organizations that provide services to children are identified that may be able to share resources.

OBJECTIVES

To recruit further Foster Carers within and on the borders of Surrey, Sussex, Brighton & Hove, South London and Hampshire, to achieve around 60fostering households, providing placements to a number of local authorities at any one time.
To recruit Foster Carersto provide a variety of placement types (Long Term, Short Term, Respite,Siblings, Parent(s) and baby/child(ren)) and with a focus on foster families without young children at home.
To develop further the aspect of the service specialising in the placement of parent(s) and their babies/child(ren), being able to contribute to care proceedings and to rehabilitation plans for these families. Foster carers undertaking these placements will have this detailed in their approval registration.
To place on average 1 - 2 young people within each mainstream foster family.
To provide a Foster Carer training programme using internal and external facilitators that provides underpinning knowledge for Foster Carers in keeping with the Training and Development Standards, and tosupportdiploma level 3 or similar qualifications and to enable carers to meet the needs, sometimes complex needs, of children they look after.
To maintain adequate social work staff to ensure that Foster Carers receive supervision and support in a ratio of 1:10 ( full time social worker:mainstream foster families).
To operate as alearning organisation in supporting staff development through training and other opportunities and to deliver practice placements to second year Student Social Workers.
To match children, young people, parent(s) with children/babies and Foster Carers as carefully as possible in order to maximise the likelihood of the placement meeting the child/young person’s needs and Care Plan and the placement enduring and being stable.
To actively consult with young people, Foster Carers and others involved in the lives of young people to inform the delivery and development of the fostering service.
To liaise regularly with Placing Authorities with information about foster placement vacancies and respond to referrals promptly and effectively.
To work closely with placing Authority Social Workers to ensure that LAC processes, delegation of authority, record keeping and information sharing takes place to inform Care Plans and ensure these are implemented.
To maintain or exceed anOfsted inspection judgement of “Good” (2014) for the Fostering Service.

PHILOSOPHY

Cornerways Fostering Services operate within the principles of the Children Act 1989, placing the welfare of children at the forefront of our service - in the recruitment of carers and staff, the matching and placing of children and young people and the ongoing development and management of Foster Carers and of placements.

Cornerways Fostering Services expects to evolve and develop to reflect the changes in the needs of children and young people requiring foster care, the changing issues and safeguarding risks they face in their individual lives, in the community and online. It therefore endeavors to be an organization that is outward looking and seeks to understand and respond to changes to meet children’s needs.

Cornerways believes that each person, whether a child or adult, is unique and has innate potential. In recruiting Foster Carers, Cornerways focuses on identifying adults who are able to keep themselves and young people safe (physically, emotionally and sexually). Further to this our Foster Carers are identified as able to promote positive experiences, progress and outcomes for children and young people in termstheir health and wellbeing, safety & protection, education and achievements, participation in family and community and preparation towards independence and active citizenship in adult life.

The philosophy of Cornerways is of empowerment of staff, of carers, of children and young people. In so doing, promoting the development of staff and Foster Carers is essential so that they can promote positive safeguarding of children and the development of individual children within a safe, nurturing, respectful environment that provides opportunities and support. Children’s racial, ethnic, religious and cultural needs will be respected and valued within the matching process and the foster placement. All aspects of diversity, for example of background, sexuality and disability will be acknowledged within an equal opportunities framework. Our goal is that children will thrive while in placement and in the future.

Cornerways Foster Carersand staffwill be valued by the organisation for the skills, experience and potential that they offer and the outcomes they achieve in their work.

Cornerways Fostering embraces the concept of flexible, creative solutions to placement needs and will work with placing authorities where unusual services are needed for specific situations or individuals. The emphasis is on ensuring children and carer safety and wellbeing, while supporting young people and families towards desired outcomes.

CORNERWAYS FOSTERING SERVICES VALUES

High standards of integrity and respect for children and adults irrespective of their ability, ethnicity, culture, religion, gender identity or sexual orientation.

Promotion of stable and safe environments for children and young people where they can make secure attachments, be protected from abuse and neglect and develop knowledge and skills to keep themselves safe.

Promotion of learning and developmental experiences through both schooling and outside school social/leisure opportunities, educational attainment and achievement, progress and school attendance for children and young people placed in Cornerways Foster Placements. To be outward looking for opportunities that will benefit children and young people through existing organizations and services aswell as building links with new and developing organizations.

Positive outcomes for children and young people through the provision of quality foster care placements focused on the individual needs of children and young people. This includes developing independence skills, identity and personal resources for their adult lives.

Promotion of children’s health and wellbeing, development of age appropriate personal care skills and meeting developmental needs of children and young people placed in Cornerways Foster placements.

OURPLACEMENT SERVICES TO YOUNG PEOPLE

Number of Foster Carers

Cornerways has 27 approved foster families able to provide placements for up to 45 young people. These placements can include:

Short Term

Placements for children and young people in crisis, in care proceedings, in rehabilitation plans and involved in the Criminal Justice system. There are also foster carers available for short term placements of young people and children who are seeking asylum as unaccompanied children in the UK or who may have been trafficked into the UK.

Sibling Group Placements

Where Foster Carers are approved for sibling groups, these are available to brothers and sisters.

Bridging Placements

Foster Carers within Cornerways are able to undertake bridging placements for children needing preparation for permanency through adoption, long term foster care or return to birth families,and,in addition, bridging into residential placement within Cornerways Children’s Services for some young women.

Extended Placements/Long Term/Permanence

These placements are available to meet the needs of children requiring “long term” placements or preparation for independence. They are also available for children needing permanent foster placementswhere they can be assured of a place in their foster family for the whole of their childhood and adolescence.This may extend to the ongoing provision of a staying put arrangement for a young person.Long term placements include those (sometimes called step-down placements) for young women who are ready to move on from Cornerways residential provision into a foster family and also for young people who may have initially been placed in an emergency with our carers as unaccompanied asylum seeking children (UASC).

Parent(s) and Baby/Child(ren) Placements

Parent(s) and baby/child(ren) placements are available where Foster Carers have the approval, skills and accommodation to undertake such placements. Our Foster Carers can contribute to assessments of parenting ability (normally commissioned as 12 week placements) through observation and recording aswell as potentially longer placements supporting very young parents, teaching and modelling parenting skills and helping new parents integrate into the community as parents. These placements may be for adult parents aged over 16 or for parents who are themselves Looked After Children. They will be subject to a specific placement agreement and clarity of roles and responsibilities. Where parents and baby/child are rehabilitated into the community, foster carers are able to deliver a level of outreach to support the early weeks of rehabilitation. Foster Carers with parent and baby placements will receive a specific level of supervision, utilise specific documentation and processes, as well as practical support in respect of the tasks of each placement.

Respite Placements

Respite placements to temporarily care for children living with their own families or with Foster Carers as a support provision for those main carers and an opportunity for children to have new and different experiences and relationships. This service is also provided to young women placed with Cornerways Children’s Services (residential care).

Children with Disabilities

Where Cornerways Foster Carers have the skills, environment and potential to provide positive placements for children with disabilities, these will be offered within the range of placements detailed above.

Children and Young People with Complex Needs

This includes children with attachment issues, self harm, challenging behaviour, children who have lived with domestic violence, children whose sexual behaviour is considered a risk to others, or where people in the community present specific risks of child sexual exploitation (or other exploitation) to the young person.

If children and young people have complex needs, some of our carers have the family structure, the skills and experience to meet these. This may be specified by placing authorities as singleton or solo placements according to the young person’s needs and assessed risks.

Young People Subject to the Criminal Justice System

A limited number of our carers have the experience or ability to provide placements to young people who are remanded, bailed or subject to community or custodial sentences. Like all our placements the risks will be carefully assessed before placement.

Staying Put placements

Where young people wish and need to remain living in the home of their Cornerways foster carer(s) beyond age 18, in a Staying Put arrangement, and where this is in keeping with the carers’ wishes, such arrangements will be supported by Cornerways Fostering, where the young person has already been in placement for a number of years. Where a young person fostered within Cornerways wishes and needs to be in a supported lodgings placement with a different Cornerways foster carer, then this will also be supported by Cornerways Fostering Services if a suitable vacancy is available.