Family partner at Morecrofts, Eleanor Cockrell, looks into research revealing that many local authorities want to do more to support children in care being reunited with their families.
Many local authorities want to support children in care to be returned to their families, but are struggling to do so because of finance restrictions, lack of staff and resources and lack of guidance.
If you have been through care proceedings and the final Court decision was that your child should remain placed outside of the family under a final care order, you should still be invited to attend regular meetings with the social worker to discuss the plan for your child. Contact should be reviewed and the child’s plan should be talked about to make sure that the placement and support in place is still what is right for them.
If you have been making changes to your life and have taken steps to change the things that the Court was worried about when the final decision was made then that should also be talked about.
If you feel that these things aren’t happening then there are steps you can take and we can advise you on those. We can write to the local authority to find out more information and to make sure they are reviewing things properly. If appropriate we can make an application to Court for them to look at the plan for your child and specifically to see if the placement is still the right one, whether you should have another assessment and whether the contact should be changed.
It seems positive that the local authorities asked said they wanted to do more but it is also clear that at the moment they maybe just don’t have the right support and systems in place for that to happen.