Placement Disruption Meetings - guidance

PLACEMENT DISRUPTION MEETINGS -

GUIDANCE

When a child’s care plan is permanence - either a long-term foster placement or kinship placement or adoption - and this has not been realised - a Placement Disruption Meeting should be held. This is regardless of whether matching or an adoption order has been agreed.

Prior to a child being matched and placed in an alternative family a great deal of work will have been done to ensure the placement is as successful as possible. At a minimum - in a foster care/kinship placement it will be expected that the child will be staying with the family until 18 years of age. In an adoptive placement the family will commit themselves forever to the child. Such placement disruptions are fairly unusual and should therefore be viewed as seriously as when the child was separated from it’s birth family.

All attempts to sustain the placement should be fully explored before the Placement Disruption Meeting is requested.

A Placement Disruption Meeting is a stand-alone process. It is not the same as a planning meeting and should not be used as such.

The meeting is essentially to establish why the placement disrupted, and what lessons can be learned about meeting a child’s future needs. It is not to apportion blame.

It can be useful to hold a Placement Disruption Meeting where a short-term placement has disrupted and where the child has had a series of short-term placements, which have disrupted. It may highlight issues/themes for the child that may be preventing a long-term placement being identified.

The meetings are lengthy and half a day should be set aside to hold them.

PURPOSE OF THE MEETING

  • Identify significant factors leading to the disruption.
  • To hear from the child and family their reasons/understanding about why the placement has disrupted.
  • Enable participants to share feelings and information about the placement and disruption.
  • Gain information about the child to inform future planning.
  • Look at the quality of preparation, matching and support offered to the family and child.
  • Highlight areas for development in practice.
  • To enable the team, with the information gathered, to be able to formulate an action plan for the child.

PROCEDURE

It is unlikely that a placement will disrupt with little warning. Much work will have been done to ensure that, if possible, the child can stay in the placement. Therefore there should be sufficient time to plan the meeting.

Timing:

The meeting should be held no sooner than 6 weeks but no longer than 12 weeks following the disruption. Feelings/emotions may be running high. The timescale should allow for these feelings to subside but to be recent enough to build on the impetus.

Planning:

As soon as it becomes clear that the placement is going to disrupt, the Team Manager should discuss the possibility of holding a Placement Disruption Meeting with the Head of the Looked After Children Service, the appropriate Family Placement Team Manager and the Reviewing Officer of the Looked After Child Reviews.

The Team Manager/Social Worker will contact the Head of the Safeguarding and Quality Assurance Service to request a Reviewing Officer to Chair the meeting.

The Manager of the appropriate Family Placement Team should inform the Chair of the relevant adoption/fostering panel that the placement has disrupted.

Chair:

An Independent Reviewing Officer who has not been involved in the case should Chair the meeting. They should have experience of chairing Placement Disruption Meetings.

Once a Chair has been identified they will have a discussion with the Social Worker/Team Manager and Supervising Social Worker or Adoption Social Worker to agree attendees/venue/date. The Team Manager will arrange a minute taker; preferably someone from the Admin Team in the Looked After Children’s Service.

Invites:

The Social Worker will invite people. It may be helpful send out copies of the agenda to invitees (pages 3 - 4 of document). This will enable attendees to prepare adequately for the meeting and bring relevant information.

Minutes:

A member of the Lac Admin Team, if available, will take minutes of the meeting. It should not be the Chair. However, the Chair will write the Introduction and Summary, check and sign off the minutes.

Attendees:

Essential:

Independent Chair

Child’s Social Worker

Social Worker’s Manager

Carer/adopter

Family placement Social Worker

If an Agency placement – a Senior Manager from the organisation

Child (if appropriate)

Desirable:

Current carers

Therapists

Representative HEART Team

Representative School

Representative ART

Parents (if appropriate)

MATTERS TO BE COVERED IN THE PLACEMENT DISRUPTION MEETING

Depending on the time available it is important to address at least 3 points from each section to order to get as full a picture as possible.

Child’s life prior to reception into care
  1. Date and place of birth.
  2. Ethnicity.
  3. Parent’s details and where they are now.
  4. Sibling’s details and where they are now.
  5. Involvement of Social Services or other agencies.
  6. Number of care settings the child has experienced.
Reception into care
  1. Reasons for removal of child.
  2. What the plan was for the child.
  3. What is the child’s legal status.
Child’s life in care
  1. Number of care settings the child has had.
  2. The care plan for the child in each setting.
  3. Information about the child’s response to any move, including behaviour and relationships in the placements.
  4. The child’s progress at school.
  5. The child’s health.
  6. How many Social Workers has the child had.
  7. Details of any specialist assessments the child has had.
  8. Details of ongoing specialist support.
  9. Contact arrangements between the child and birth family.

The recruitment, assessment and selection of the kinship/foster carers/adopters

  1. Who assessed the adopters/carers.
  2. Did any significant issues arise during the assessment.
  3. Description of family structure.
  4. How and why was the family selected for the child.
  5. Is this family’s first placement.
  6. Were any issues raised at Panel.
  7. What post placement support was agreed.

Introduction and placement of the child

  1. Discuss the introduction process including who chaired the meeting and how soon introductions started following the meeting.
  2. How was the child prepared for the move.
  3. Did the child have a life story book/treasure box to take with them.
  4. Did any issues arise during the introductions.
  5. Who moved the child into the placement.
  6. How did the child react to the move.
  7. How did the carers/adopters react to the move.
  8. When did it become apparent that difficulties were emerging.
  9. What were the problems.
  10. What support was put in place to address the problems.
  11. How was the decision made to move the child.
  12. How has the child reacted to the disruption.
  13. How have the carers/adopters reacted to the disruption.
The future
  1. Where is the child now.
  2. How is the child in placement.
  3. What support is being given to the child.
  4. Are the carers/adopters still in touch with the child.
  5. What support are the carers/adopters receiving.
  6. Have the birth family been informed about the disruption. If not, is there a plan to inform them.
  7. What is the proposed plan for the child now.

Distribution of minutes:

Once the Chair has added the Introduction and Summary and checked the minutes they will distribute to all those who attended the meeting and sent apologies.

The Chair will also send copies of the minutes to Head of Service for Looked After Children, Head of Safeguarding and Quality Assurance, Family Placement Team Manager, and Chair of the Panel. A copy of the minutes will also be put on the child and carer/adopter’s files.

Panel:

The Family Placement Social Worker will arrange for the child’s case to be presented back to Panel to update Panel members. It may be useful for both the carer/adopter and child’s Social Workers to speak to Panel jointly. The Panel should be informed about the proposed plans for the child and the carer/adopter’s. The Panel may make a recommendation about the next stage.

Other matters

  • A review of the carers/adopters should be completed as soon as possible after the disruption and be presented to the appropriate panel.
  • An annual audit of disrupted placements (where a Placement Disruption Meeting has been held) should be undertaken by an Officer in the Quality Assurance Service and presented for discussion.

Sally Parma

Deputy Head. SQAS

Dec 2006. Amended March 2007

1