Foster Carer Reviews

1. Statutory Requirements

A review of foster carers’ approval must take place not more than a year after approval, and thereafter whenever the fostering service provider considers it necessary, but at intervals of not more than a year (Regulation 28 of the Fostering Services Regulations 2011).

The review will consider whether a foster carer’s approval should continue and if there should be any changes to their terms of approval.

Fostering regulations make it clear that the First Foster carer annual review report has to be presented to Fostering panel.

2. Review Process – Summary

The first review meeting will be arranged 11 months after ADM approval and signed off by carers and Team manager within 12 months of ADM approval.

Subsequent Foster carer reviews will be completed every 12 months, and the date recorded of the Foster carer review will be the date of the Foster carer review meeting every year. Therefore, next year’s review will be held within 12 months of last year’s Review meeting date. See table below for further details.

Foster carers must be informed of the date of their review meeting well in advance.

The review must be completed on the standard LCS review form, ensuring that all relevant information is obtained and collated from the relevant parties. The foster carers supervising social worker is responsible for completing the Foster carer annual review form on LCS, ensuring that all relevant is obtained and collated from relevant parties, including:

Talk to all carers in the household, carers’ own children, fostered child(ren) and other significant members of the household – to find out their views;
Get written feedback from social workers of any children they have fostered since your last review;
Consider any information in relation to complaints or allegations made against carers or their family;
Review the training they have completed, and identify any future training needs;
Complete a health and safety checklist;
Review the family’s Safer Caring Plan;
Provide a recommendation on your suitability to continue as a foster carer including whether any changes to your terms of approval are proposed.

A Foster carer feedback form should be sent to the foster carers and returned to the Supervising social worker prior to the review meeting so that any issues raised by the carer can be discussed at the review meeting.

Feedback forms must be sent to all Social Workers for children who have been placed with the foster carer(s) in the review period prior to the review by the Team Administrator. The responses must be incorporated into the review report and also appended to the report. Reminders must be sent to the child’s Social Worker and their line manager if the responses are not returned by the due date.

Foster carers must have the opportunity to see a typed draft of the review before it receives final approval to check for factual accuracy. They must be invited to add comments and should sign the review and/or confirm via email that they have read and had the opportunity to comment on the information in the review.

All Foster carer reviews will have Team manager oversight and comments and will finally be authorised by the Agency Decision maker. Foster carers will receive a letter from the Fostering team manager following the review to confirm the approval terms. Where the review has been presented to Fostering panel, the letter will be sent from the Agency decision maker.

In certain circumstances, an Independent Foster carer review will be undertaken by a Placement Independent reviewing officer. See further information in the Independent Reviews of Hertfordshire County Council Foster Carers Procedure.

Proposed time scales of review process:

Rolling Annual review year starts	LAST YEAR’S FOSTER CARER REVIEW MEETING IS THE DATE OF THE REVIEW.
8 months after last year’s review and 4 months prior to review due	SEEK REVIEW FEEDBACK Trigger to be sent to SSW by Support officer to let them know review is due. Start collating feedback from carers, professionals, children etc.
9 months after last review and 3 months prior to review date	START WRITING UP THE REVIEW SSW to start writing up the review form, chasing any outstanding feedback etc. Arrange date for Foster carer review meeting with carers (arrange for 11 1/2 months after last Annual review meeting).
10 months and 3 weeks	Draft report (which now is more or less completed) to be sent to foster carers
11 MONTHS	Foster carer review meeting Review meeting where the report is presented to carers more or less complete QA will have been done by TM of the draft report. The review meeting is the date used to record the Foster carer review.
2 weeks following review meeting	SSW completes the review report and sends to carers for their comments and feedback.
4 weeks following review meeting	Sign off by TM and ADM
Within 1 week of ADM	Reapproval letter and review sent to foster carers, as well as an updated Foster carer agreement outlining Foster carers terms of approval.
Within 12 months of last Review meeting	Review meeting to held no more than 12 months since the last Review meeting was held. This is the date that will added to checks as the due date for the new review

3. Panel Reviews

The following Foster carer reviews must be presented to the Fostering panel:

First Foster carer annual review (Statutory requirement) is always presented to Fostering panel;
Where a Foster carer review has not been to panel for any reason within the last 5 years;
Where a service decision has been made that a review should be presented to panel following a referral made to LADO of an allegation of abuse by a foster carer or a member of their household, that met LADO threshold with unfounded, unsubstantiated or substantiated outcome;
Where a service decision has been made that a review should be presented to panel following a Quality of care concern has been raised and an IRO review has been completed;
Where a service decision has been made that a review should be presented to panel following a serious complaint;
Any proposed increase to the carer’s approval category needs to be presented to panel within 12 months of ADM decision to change approval (see Exemptions and Variations of Approval Procedure);
Where the Fostering Service believes that the carer’s approval needs to be terminated and the carer does not agree. In the case where a foster carer decides to resign, the review to recommendation of termination of approval can only be presented to panel whilst the carer remains an approved foster carer.

All such decisions must be recorded on the carer’s file.

See Fostering Panel Procedure for paper work requirements for panel referrals.

Where the review is presented to the Fostering Panel, the Panel’s recommendation as to the future approval of the foster carer will be submitted to the Agency Decision Maker for a decision to be made.

A copy of the Review Form and a record of the outcome of the review will be retained on the foster carer’s case record.

4. Representations/Review Procedure

Where, as a result of a review, termination of a foster carer’s approval is proposed, written notice of the proposal and the reasons must be sent to the foster carer within 7 days of the recommendation and he or she must be advised that if they wish to challenge the recommendation, they have the opportunity to make representations to the Panel or to request a review by an Independent Review Mechanism. For further details, please see Fostering Panel Procedure, Representations and the Independent Review Process.

5. Agency Decision Maker

The Agency Decision Maker is responsible for deciding whether a person, or their household, remain suitable to foster and whether the terms of approval remain suitable, following each review of the foster carer’s approval. The decision should be based on the written report of the review and take into account any recommendation by the fostering panel and any recommendation of the Independent Review Mechanism (IRM).

The Agency Decision Maker, will in his/her letter

List the material taken into account in reaching the decision;
Identify key arguments;
Consider whether they agree with the process and approach the relevant panel(s) and are satisfied as to its fairness and that the panel(s) has properly addressed their arguments;
Consider whether any additional information now available to the ADM, that was not available to the panel has an impact on its reasons or recommendations;
Identify the reasons given for the relevant recommendation that they do or do not wish to foster/adopt;
Any further reasons for ADM’s decision.