Children in Care and Care Leavers
What’s Devon’s approach?
In Devon, we take the role of corporate parent to children in care very seriously. We strive to ensure that every child we support will be given every opportunity to be happy, healthy, safe and able to fulfil their potential, achieving their aspirations in life, as outlined in the Every Child Matters outcomes:
- Be healthy;
- Stay safe;
- Enjoy and achieve;
- Make a positive contribution;
- Enjoy economic wellbeing.
We think the key to achieving these outcomes lies within our relationships with our children in care. Our Social Workers make regular visits, and are able to offer continuity, which we know is so important to children in care, regardless of whether they are being cared for in a residential or fostering arrangement. There’s no doubt that this work can be challenging at times, but it’s the sense of personal reward when a child is placed with the right family that makes the difference to individuals in our team. We work hard to ensure that children are given a stable, permanent family environment, through our adoption specialists, if they cannot be placed back into their own homes.
The Children in Care team place a high value on communications too and making sure that our children have a voice is very important to us. That’s why we ensure that all children in care have access to a local Participation Forum, so that they can share their experiences and give us feedback on what is working for them, and what might need to be improved. Our social workers work directly with children on a daily basis, enhancing our ability to listen when they want to talk and be responsive to their needs.
As a Social Worker in the Children in Care team, you’ll be travelling widely and working from one or more of our offices across Devon. Devon County Council operates a caseload weighting system, where all children in care benefit from working with an allocated social worker. The system ensures that cases are allocated and monitored according to complexity and the level of input required by individuals, ensuring that no one becomes over-loaded. County teams are managed by a Practice Manager, and we ensure all social workers receive an in-depth induction, along with regular one-to-one supervision sessions.
Background to the Children in Care (including Fostering and Adoption) Service
It is the duty of the local authority to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. The Children Act 1989 places duties on the courts and local authorities to ensure that every effort is made to keep families together by providing support to children at home.
If a child has to live away from their own home and is cared for by the Local Authority, this is known as being ‘looked-after’. There are 530 children looked-after by Devon County Council, through teams within Children and Young People’s Services. The proportion of children in foster homes is around 76%, with over 8% of looked-after children adopted or made subject to special guardianship orders each year.
Our Children in Care and Care Leavers Service employs qualified social workers to supervise and support our young people. We have high aspirations for all our children and celebrate their achievements alongside their parents, friends and carers. In addition, we are supported by a specialist team of education colleagues and dedicated Children in Care nurses, all of whom are committed to continuity of care and continued improvement for all children.
We are actively recruiting and supporting more foster carers and adopters and have a concurrency project – one of only five in the country.
Learn more about services for Looked After Children.
Fostering
Devon County Council provides safe, caring homes for children and young people who aren’t able to live with their birth families. We do this by working closely with our carers, children and young people, their social workers and birth families.
There is always a demand for our service – so we are always ready to welcome new Foster Carers. We have in the region of 330 caring homes throughout the county, but we need many more people to take up this unique challenge.
Looking after vulnerable children is not the easiest thing in the world – but the rewards can be endless. Knowing you are making a difference to a young person’s life is very fulfilling. Devon urgently needs more foster carers.
Find out more about fostering.
Adoption
Adoption is a way of providing new families for children who cannot be brought up by their natural parents. The adoptive parents take on the legal responsibility for the child and the child becomes a full member of a new family, usually taking the new family name. Links with the birth family may be maintained.
There are dedicated Adoption Units with social workers based in Exeter, Barnstaple and Totnes.