Southwark judgment

This is a court decision made by the Court of Appeal in 2007. This judgment determined that when children’s services are involved in placing a child with kinship foster carers, then the child should be treated as a looked after child. This should be the case unless children’s services reached a clear alternative agreement with the carer at the time the placement was made.

The judgment is significant in terms of its implications in relation to the support children’s services must provide to families. It means that kinship foster carers must be assessed and approved in the same way as other, unrelated foster carers who work for children’s services. Importantly, it means that they must also be paid and supported in the same way.

Later judgments in relation to other cases have confirmed the same point.