Family Rights Group | Kinship carers’ Forum

Hi

So feeling a bit lost at the moment. I have been put forward to be an sgo for my nephew. He has been in foster care a few months. I had my viability assessment a few weeks ago and chased this last week as had not heard anything. Sw had missed off section so we had to schedule time that was suitable for them to complete. They have informed me it is a positive assessment pending police checks.

I have no idea what to expect with his but the delays and missed appointments are getting frustrating as I’m having to book time off work then told last minute that the appointment is cancelled. I have read through some of the guides already but still feeling really lost.

Dear Shoclueless

Welcome to the kinship carers’ discussion forum and thank you for your post.

My name is Suzie, online adviser at Family Rights Group and I will be responding to your post. I am sorry it has taken a little time to respond due to volume of work.

I am sorry that you are feeling so anxious about the current situation where you are being assessed to care for your nephew. It is understandable that you might feel lost because this is a completely new process for you and not easy to understand the procedures. As you have been told your assessment is positive that is good news and if there are no issues likely to come up with the police checks, then the more in-depth assessment will be started. Please see information relating to viability assessment and special guardianship order from our website. This should help you to understand the process better.

It is unfortunate that the social worker has not been able to keep appointments with you and there is little notice given to help you organise your work. The nature of their work means that social workers can have emergencies come up in respect of urgent safeguarding issues or even changes to court dates over which they have no control. Having said this, it is not helpful for your situation to have last minute changes. I suggest you ask the social worker to offer appointments at the end or beginning of the day so you could at least work if there is a change at short notice if that would help. It may also be more appropriate to have appointments a week or more in advance so you can plan your work schedule.

Here is information from our website explaining the assessment procedures for a special guardianship order. The important thing is that you have had a positive viability assessment because if negative it would mean you challenging that and possibly asking the court for another assessment to be done. Despite the frustrations with delay and lack of communication you are in a good position now.

The social worker unfortunately omitted a section on the assessment, and this must be done but it is unlikely to affect the positive assessment and is to ensure that the assessment meets the criteria as you will be in the good practice guide above.

Once you have read the information from links provided, I hope you will be clearer about the process, but should you wish to speak to an adviser, you can telephone our free confidential advice line on 0808 801 0366. The advice line is open from 9.30am to 3.00pm Monday to Friday (except Bank Holidays). There is also a live webchat with an adviser if this is more helpful to you.

Hope this information will help and you will better understand the procedures.

Best wishes

Suzie

Unfortunately it is a long drawn process it has taken 9 months for my assessment to be completed! My granddaughter is now 15 months old and still on Forster care. It has been almost a month since they completed my assessment which was a positive assessment and I still have had no contact or anything with my granddaughter. SW haven’t been in touch or anything my life has been on hold all this time and they think it’s acceptable for o treat people this way.

Dear HHHD4

Welcome to the kinship carers’ forum. Thank you for your post. My name is Suzie. I am Family Rights Group’s adviser. I am very sorry to hear about the difficulties that you have experienced and also that you have not yet been able to spend time with your baby granddaughter. I understand that, as you say, your life has been put on hold during this time.

Congratulations on being positively assessed to care for your granddaughter. I appreciate that it has taken a very long time though for your assessment to be completed. I think you have had a Special Guardianship assessment.

It is difficult to provide detailed advice with limited information. If you are in touch with your granddaughter’s parent/s and if they support you to care for their child they can ask their solicitor to seek clarification from the court about moving forward with your contact or potentially placing the child with you as soon as possible. Or you can write to the court setting out your situation and asking that they consider this.

You also should contact your granddaughter’s Independent Reviewing Officer explaining the situation and the lack of contact with your granddaughter to date and asking that they chase this up with the social worker urgently.

If you need to, you can consider making a complaint about how children’s services worked with you. However, any complaints about decisions made by the court will not be investigated.

The following information may be helpful to you:

Care proceedings
Children in care under a care order
Advice sheets 2 a), b) c) e)

Perhaps you would like to discuss your situation with an adviser. Our freephone advice line 0808 8010366 is open from 9.30 am to 3.00 pm, Mon to Fri (except bank holidays). Alternatively, please post again with a further query or use our webchat or advice enquiry service.

I hope this helps.

Best wishes

Suzie