Staying put is an arrangement where young people remain with their foster carers following their 18th birthday, and was endorsed by government and formalised in the Children and Families Act 2014. Informal arrangements had been in place for many years, but the legislation brought with it extra funding and a renewed national drive to do better for young people leaving care.

The following tips highlight good practice in staying put arrangements – the legislation and guidance, what works for young people and carers, and how carers can best be supported:

1. The local authority has a duty to consider staying put for all eligible care leavers, but the arrangement does not suit every young person. The Children Act 1989 states that local authorities must support care leavers whether or not they stay put. This support may continue until their 25th birthday if they remain in education or training. Therefore, staying put is one option in the planning process for leaving care. Support may also be offered beyond 21 once the staying put arrangement has ended.
2. Staying put should be considered as an option in the young person’s care plan and pathway plan. There is no separate, distinct staying put assessment process. As such, staying put must be on the agenda from age 14 as part of a needs-based assessment. The pathway plan must be in place within three months of the young person’s 16th birthday – if a staying put arrangement is assessed as meeting the needs of the young person, this must be included (The Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000).
3. The young person must be empowered to participate fully in the decision. Their wishes and feelings must be considered in any decision (Statutory Guidance 7.29). In order to make an informed choice, the young person needs information about all the elements of a staying put arrangement, including finance, support, what is expected of them in the home, boundaries and house rules etc. They should have access to advocacy and independent advice, and any decision should not be rushed.
4. Carers also need to make an informed choice. Looking after a young person until they are 21 requires different skills – new boundaries, growing independence, developing life skills – which should be recognised in training and support. Then there is the question of the allowance carers receive. The staying put allowance, plus other benefits, is typically lower than the fostering allowance. Finally, any staying put arrangement will affect carers’ fostering approval. The number of bedrooms available for fostering will be reduced. The nature and extent of the young person’s needs may limit placement choices.
5. The duties under the Fostering Regulations and the National Minimum Standards do not apply to staying put arrangements. It is not a requirement that the fostering service supervises these placements, or that the carer remains an approved foster carer. That said, the fostering service should seriously consider using the Regulations and Standards as incorporated in their existing policy and procedures manual as a basis for good practice. If the carer is an approved foster carer, these conditions must be adhered to, to ensure their continued approval.
6. The role of the social worker is significant in maintaining the continuity at the heart of staying put. If the social worker and the young person have a good relationship, this should be continued if at all possible. A young person turning 18 loses their social work links too if, for example, their worker’s team does not have responsibility for post-18 care. A sound relationship should not be broken up at this crucial moment in the life of the young person.

The 2015 Prevent update now places a statutory duty on local authority staff and partner agencies to work to the Prevent agenda. This has reimagined the role of statutory social work and could serve to alter the relationships social workers have with service users.

Statutory guidance issued under section 29 of the Counter Terrorism and Security Act 2015 states that authorities should place the appropriate amount of weight needed to prevent people being drawn into terrorism (HM Government, 2015). The guidance is unequivocal in promoting a risk-based approach to information sharing, while monitoring and enforcement principles underpin the duty.

The question has to be asked – how can this new duty be balanced with the fundamental social work principles of promoting a family and community centred rights and justice based approach, rather than focusing on the individual?

The following tips offer a critical social work perspective, designed to help you fulfil your statutory duty without losing sight of the social work role.

1. Simply instilling in children a strong sense of belief and/or religious practice is not a safeguarding concern. Radicalisation is a vague and non-specific word.  It means different things to different people, and this has led to confusion in accurately assessing risk.  Where there is evidence that a child is being influenced or groomed with fundamentalist thoughts, associated with a hatred for the country or another religion, then that is a potential concern.
2. Start assessments early, meaningfully engage with the family and keep the response proportionate. In cases where it is suspected that a child or young person has been radicalised, and they are living in a household where other family members are known to hold extremist ideologies, it can be difficult to determine the proportionate social work response. It is not enough to live in a family where parents are associated with prescribed groups. The quality of information gathered is key here. You need to know what it is like for the young person living in this family, to keep a real watching brief on whether compliance is genuine or disguised and how you are making progress.  It is about solid assessment, meaningful understanding of the family and thorough risk analysis to inform a plan going forward that links back to evidence.
3. Work closely with police, and other partner agencies, to develop a shared understanding of how and when information will be shared and thresholds. This is crucial from the outset. Robust systems of information governance need to be developed, and understandings around what information is shared, and why, need to be explicit. It can be difficult when police colleagues have high levels of sensitive information which cannot be shared, but might change the outcome of a decision. Work needs to be done to look at how this information can be managed between partners. Learning needs to be done together, developing a truly multi-agency strategy. The Prevent board, strategic overview and channel panel all need to dove-tail, and fit together with an operational approach. Social workers also should also work closely with partners to promote understanding amongst pivotal associated roles eg assisting independent reviewing officers and child protection chairs to understand thresholds, and how they are applied in cases of suspected radicalisation, or working with schools in identifying risk. This needs to be alongside wider community work to raise awareness of what radicalisation looks like and what people should do when they suspect it is occurring, and to build community resilience.
4. Do not focus exclusively on at-risk children. In radicalisation cases risk is a dynamic idea that shifts and changes. The family group conference model can be adopted, and in some cases prevent an escalation to child protection. This model gives the family the right and option to come up with plans to help themselves in a quiet and confidential space. If you can locate possibility, dreams and desires in family life, then it is the work of social workers to help in bringing about that change. Social workers need to question what they are drawing on when they talk about risk and children and families in this area. Thinking about risk needs to be orientated out, so that it is not just about at-risk children, but at-risk families and communities.
5. The social work role is a safeguarding role. There is a real need to keep an eye on whether social workers are treading into the territory of ‘soft policing’. It is crucial to remember that social workers have a distinct role, and are not there to deliver the police agenda. Despite the immense political, public and media pressure to influence the lives of some families, social workers need to be mindful to take a ‘business as usual’ approach, as they would to any safeguarding concern, and remain proportionate in any response taken. Social workers need to question the notion of radical views being a problem. The problem we should be concerned about is extremist behaviour.

Future legislative changes
This article summarises the legislation that applied to supporting destitute families with NRPF at the date of the guide’s publication. However, practitioners need to be aware that the Immigration Act 2016, which gained Royal Assent in May 2016, will establish a new statutory provision that sets out when local authorities will be required to provide accommodation and/or financial support to destitute families and care leavers who have no immigration status, and to families where the parent has a derived right to reside in the UK as a Zambrano carer. The government is yet to announce when these changes will be introduced, and further regulations and guidance will be made to provide details of the scheme.For a summary of the provisions of the Immigration Act relating to local authority support see the NRPF Network website.

Local authorities have responsibilities under social care legislation to provide accommodation and financial support to vulnerable migrants who are excluded from mainstream benefits and housing due to their immigration status. With a lack of statutory guidance from central government on the eligibility of people with no recourse to public funds (NRPF) for these services, it can be very challenging for local authorities to navigate their responsibilities to those with NRPF.

The following tips can help identify and resolve cases where children and families have NRPF:

1. Ask the right questions when referrals are made. Cases of NRPF need to be quickly and accurately identified and this can be done by including questions related to nationality and immigration status in referral forms. The courts have established that the duty to undertake an assessment is triggered by a child in need being physically present in the local authority’s area. Establishing immigration status is essential in order to determine whether the family might be able to access welfare benefits and homelessness assistance, as well as establishing whether the exclusions to social services support apply, and therefore what assessments will need to be carried out. It is good practice to routinely check immigration status of all people requesting assistance with the Home Office and to have specialist workers trained to deal with NRPF cases.
2. If needed, emergency support should be provided while assessments are carried out. If a family presents as homeless and with no other means of support, the local authority may need to provide accommodation and financial support while undertaking the relevant assessments. Therefore, questioning the family about their financial circumstances and gathering evidence to support this is commonly done as part of the screening process; this information can then be used in the child in need assessment. A local authority has the power under section 17 of the Children Act 1989 to provide temporary accommodation to a destitute family while assessments are being carried out. To leave a family destitute while assessments are being undertaken is likely to be in breach of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
3. A human rights assessment should be undertaken when determining whether to provide support to EEA national (or one of their family members). European Economic Area (EEA) nationals are not excluded from accessing public funds, but when they fail to satisfy the relevant eligibility tests (right to reside and habitual residence test) attached to specific benefits and local authority housing, they will have NRPF and may require financial assistance from social services. The authority must identify whether the provision of support is necessary to prevent a breach of their EU treaty rights of human rights. If the local authority identifies that there would be a breach of EU treaty rights or human rights, assistance should be provided if the child is assessed as being in need.
4. A child without accommodation is a child-in-need. The courts have established that a child without accommodation will be a child in need, and as destitution is highly likely to impact on a child’s wellbeing and development. As well as establishing destitution, the child-in-need assessment for a child with NRPF should remain child focused and consider all aspects of the child’s welfare, in order to ensure that any needs that are unrelated to destitution are identified.
5. A human rights assessment can be a useful tool to explore and discuss all the options that may be open to a family. In instances when there are no legal or practical barriers to return, the local authority must consider whether the family can freely return to their country of origin. This means that a full human rights assessment would need to be completed considering all relevant aspects of the case and the best interests of the child. Would there be a breach of family or private life? Would there be a breach of the right to a fair trial, if care or contact proceedings are ongoing in the UK? Would there be a breach of the human right to be free from torture? Does anyone in the family have a right to reside in the UK? If the answers to all of these questions are satisfactory, then how would the return to the country of origin be facilitated? These are all questions which should be discussed in a human rights assessment
6. When a child has been found to be in need due to the family being destitute, the local authority should provide accommodation and/or financial assistance to not only meet the child’s needs, but the whole family’s needs relating to destitution. Section 17 of the Children Act 1989 requires local authorities to promote the upbringing of such children by their families when this is consistent with safeguarding and promoting the child’s welfare and allows for any services, including accommodation and financial support, to be provided to the family in order to safeguard or promote the child’s welfare. This means that assistance to alleviate destitution would need to be provided to the whole family. It is not, therefore, an appropriate response to offer to look after the child on a voluntary basis or to instigate care proceedings when there are no safeguarding concerns, as assistance under section 17 of the Children Act can otherwise be provided to safeguard and promote the child’s welfare.
7. If a family is likely to be ineligible for social services support they should be made aware of the possible consequences at the start of the assessment process. If their case reaches the stage where a human rights assessment needs to be done that considers return to country of origin, discussions around return would need to take place as part of that process. If the family intends to take up return, the local authority would need to provide accommodation and financial support while the appropriate arrangements are being made and the return has taken place. Where a local authority has concluded that a family can freely return to the country of origin without a breach of human rights or EU rights, but the family refuses an offer of assistance in returning home, any hardship caused by destitution will be a result of the parent’s decision to refuse the offer of assistance rather than a failing on the part of the authority.

The significance of sound child-centred planning and preparation cannot be over-emphasised. It is the single most important determinant of placement success; it’s undoubtedly and unavoidably time-consuming but worth it. The following tips are to designed to help you achieve successful outcomes in foster placements:

1. The child or young person should participate fully in decision-taking. Participation is an active, ongoing process. It’s more than merely consulting; it’s about ensuring the child or young person has all the information they need in a form they can understand. It’s about providing different ways of enabling the child or young person to contribute and say what they want to say, for instance through child and young person friendly material and online feedback forms. It’s about preparing them for meetings, eg having them in a place where the child or young person feels comfortable, preparation that enables them to talk to someone they trust about what they want to say, and about explaining things in the meeting itself so they can take part. It’s also about professionals understanding the child’s wishes and feelings and placing them at the heart of the process.
2. There are no shortcuts – spending time in this early phase will undoubtedly save time later. It is detailed and complex so take that on board rather than deny it. The law requires it. Safeguarding, education, health, leisure, planning for the future – all are detailed in themselves and the foster carer, the child’s social worker and supervising social worker all have defined responsibilities that overlap. Plus, there is the involvement of other professionals who are part of the team around the child, eg teachers, health professionals, therapists. Experience suggests that the source of placement problems and/or friction within the team around the child can often be traced back to rushed or incomplete preparation and planning.
3. Information sharing is a prerequisite of good fostering practice. One common complaint from foster carers is that they are not given all the available information they need to enable them to care for the child. If information on a particular area is not available, this should be noted by the supervising social worker and a means by which this information can be obtained should be established. Often this is nobody’s fault, eg when an emergency placement is made where the family is hitherto unknown. Some carers are better than others at dealing with this, which should form another element of the matching decision.
4. The best way to clarify the child’s needs, and ensure the placement plan meets them, is to hold a meeting with all parties involved. The foster carer, supervising social worker, the child’s social worker and, potentially, the birth family should be included, and the child or young person should be enabled to participate as fully as possible given their age and understanding. This can be done by ascertaining their wishes and feelings beforehand, supporting them through the meeting, and ensuring they have a copy of the conclusions and know how to talk to someone if they are not happy.
5. Foster carers should be enabled and supported to take everyday decisions about the fostered child as would any responsible parent. Decisions about delegation of authority should be based on good quality assessments of need and risk for the individual child and foster carer, and foster carers should be trained and supported to undertake appropriate risk assessments in areas in which they are authorised to make decisions. Expectations around decision-taking need to be clear to everyone involved. Also, the process of creating and maintaining the delegated authority agreement can be as valuable as the actual decisions themselves. Everyone should be actively working together.