How to contact us for advice
We provide advice to parents, grandparents, relatives, friends and kinship carers who are involved with children’s services in England or need their help. We can help you understand processes and options when social workers or courts are making decisions about your child’s welfare.
Our advice service is free, independent and confidential.
To speak to an adviser, please call our free and confidential advice line 0808 801 0366 (Monday to Friday 9.30am to 3pm, excluding Bank Holidays). For Textphone dial 18001 followed by the advice line number. Or you can ask us a question via email using our advice enquiry form.
Our online advice forums are an anonymous space where parents and kinship carers (also known as family and friends carers) can get legal and practical advice, build a support network and learn from other people’s experiences.
Our get help and advice section describes the processes that you and your family are likely to go through, so that you know what to expect. Our webchat service can help you find the information and advice on our website which will help you understand the law and your rights.
If a social worker is involved in placing a child with a relative or friend, that kinship carer may be may be entitled to be treated as a foster carer. This may be very helpful in terms of getting help (including financial help) to look after the child.
We recommend that anyone in this position seek legal advice, to make sure they are getting all the support they are entitled to. This could be from a specialist children law solicitor or from Family Rights Group. There is more information about kinship foster care in our Kinship foster care section. And details of how to seek legal advice are included at the end of this page.
This definition of close relative comes from section 105 of the Children Act 1989.
Does someone have to be assessed to care for a child under a private family arrangement? Will they gain parental responsibility?
No. There is no assessment involved.
Even when an informal kinship carer has been caring for the child for some time they will not have parental responsibility. The carer may make important day-to-day decisions on behalf of the parents. But they will not be able to make important decisions. For example, decisions about medical treatment. Or about travel abroad. A parent or other person with parental responsibility can at any point remove the child from the carer.
Should children’s services be told about a private fostering arrangement?
Yes. The law says that someone who is a private foster carer (or intends to be) must tell children’s services. This should be done:
The law says others who are aware of the arrangement also have a responsibility to let children’s services know. They should do this as soon as possible. This includes:
See regulation 3(1) of The Children (Private Arrangements for Fostering) Regulations 2005.
What if the private fostering arrangement ends?
If the private fostering arrangement comes to an end the private foster carer must:
See regulation 10 of The Children (Private Arrangements for Fostering) Regulations 2005.
Is being a private foster carer the same as providing fostering through a private fostering agency?
No. when someone provides fostering through a private agency, the child is a looked after child. And the foster carer is provided ith financial and other support like any other approved foster carer. Private fostering is different. The rest of the FAQs below explain more.
Does someone need to be assessed to care for a child under private fostering?
Once children’s services are told about a private fostering arrangement they must:
This is all set out in regulation 4 of The Children (Private Arrangements for Fostering) Regulations 2005
What duties do children’s services have when a private fostering arrangement is in place?
Children’s services must visit the child every six weeks for the first year of the arrangement.
After that visits can take place less frequently but not less than every 12 weeks (3 months).
See regulation 8 of The Children (Private Arrangements for Fostering) Regulations 2005.
Below we explain two ways families can get support from local services and agencies. The first is via Early help. The second is via children’s services where the child being raised is a child in need.
Early help
Government statutory guidance called Working Together 2018 says practitioners working with families should be alert to families who may need early help services. It may be that a child needs extra support for their physical development. Or, needs some help for their emotional well-being. The guidance includes some examples of situations in which children who may need extra help services. Children in private fostering arrangements are included. So too are children with disabilities, those with special educational needs. Children facing a range of other challenging situations may need early help services too. (see Working Together 2018, page 14 at paragraph 6, and you can read about these examples on our Early help page too).
Early help aims for agencies to work together to provide support as soon as problems emerge. This is because tackling a problem early can stop things getting worse. Education (schools, nurseries), housing, and health services are all examples of agencies. Early Help can be given to a family with a child up to age 18. So, the child may be a baby, toddler, at primary school or a teenager.
The early help process starts with an early help assessment. Social workers are not involved in early help assessments or providing early help services. But sometimes they ask early help services to provide assistance to children and families they are working with.
See our Early help page for more information. This includes FAQs explaining:
Child in need
There is a general legal duty on children’s services departments to work to keep children safe, well cared for and, at home unless this would place them at risk. To help achieve this, children’s services must provide a range and level of services in their local area to help children ‘in need’. And to help their families (see section 17(1) of the Children Act 1989).
A child in need is a child who needs extra support or services to help them achieve or maintain ‘a reasonable standard of health or development’ (see section 17(1) of the Children Act 1989). All disabled children are classed as children in need.
Where a child or family may need this extra support, children’s services should carry out a child in need assessment. This aims to:
Local children’s services departments have their own measures for deciding which children are in need enough to get services. These should be set out in a local threshold document. A local threshold document helps social workers decide if a child is likely to get any extra help or services. The threshold document (or the measures in it) may be called ‘eligibly criteria’ in some areas. Slightly different measures or ‘thresholds’ apply in different local areas.
See our Child in need page for important information and advice about:
For information and advice about support for children with disabilities and children with special educational needs see our visit this page in our Why? section.
Children’s services should publish information in leaflets and on their websites about the services on offer. This should include information about how to access the services. Kinship carers can ask children’s services for a copy of the policy and for any leaflets.
A copy of this policy can be requested from the local council. Or it may be on their website. Or, follow this link on our website to see policies that have been shared with us.
What type of support for kinship carers may be available in the local area from children’s services?
The type of support that children’s services should have available in the local area should include:
This is set out in Chapter 5 of the Family and Friends Care: Statutory Guidance for Local Authorities. This is guidance that should be followed unless there is good reason not to.
Will a child and their carer definitely receive help and services from children’s services?
It may be possible to get some support from children’s services. But this is only if the child being cared for is assessed to be a child in need. See the information about Child in need above.
What if children’s services won’t do a child in need assessment?
In this situation a kinship carer can:
Before requesting a child in need assessment it is good idea to take a look at our Child in need page. This includes tips on making the request. It also has information about options where an assessment is not done or services are not offered
For advice about what do to if services are not available in your local area see our Common questions section back on the main Kinship carer page.
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