Guest Author: Jon Trew
The concept of “corporate parenting” can be confusing however, if we are involved in safeguarding children in education, it is a phrase that we need to understand. It describes the local authority’s role in the lives of children who have been “taken into care”. It means that the Local Authority has through various means, taken on the parental roles and responsibility for a child.
While foster carers or another family member might provide the physical care and accommodation of the child, it is the local authority that has the right to make decisions about the child in a way other parents would about their children.
The seven principles of corporate parenting in education
The Children and Social Work Act (2017, c 16.1) sets out the seven principles of corporate parenting which I have paraphrased below.
- To act in the child’s best interests and promote their physical and mental health and wellbeing.
- Encourage them to express their views, wishes and feelings.
- To take their views, wishes and feelings into account.
- Ensure they have access to services.
- Strive to ensure children and young people are safe, with stable home lives, relationships and education or work.
- Promote high aspirations and try to secure the best outcomes for them.
- Prepare them for adulthood and living independently.
Education settings act as an important part of the “corporate parent,” and are responsible for ensuring positive care experiences. They have a statutory duty to safeguard and promote the education of Looked After Children (LAC) ensuring they achieve their full potential.
Key responsibilities include:
- Appointing a designated person to champion their needs
- Proactively avoiding exclusions.
- Fostering close collaboration with carers/social workers.
- Ensuring top-priority, speedy admission to schools.
Understanding Looked After Children as Care Experienced Children
The language of safeguarding is always evolving and the term Looked After Child has come under recent criticism for its unfortunate abbreviation (LAC). In research from Become and Voices from Care charities, a care experienced young person commented “it makes us all feel like we’re lacking summat but we’re not.”
The term ‘Care Experienced Children’ is now widely used, including by the NSPCC, the Children’s Commissioner England and the Welsh Government. This is not a synonym for ‘children looked after’ but encompasses a wider group of children. These include those on special guardianship orders, children who are adopted and children who have been in care and have returned to the care of their parents.
All these children would be recognised as being more vulnerable in terms of safeguarding because of the experience that they have lived through.
The following is a summary of what these different terms mean in practice:
Emergency Protection Order (EPO)’s and Police Protection Orders (PPO)’s
These are types of emergency orders that are used to protect a child when the Police and/or Social Services are investigating a child at risk of significant harm. They are short term emergency measures and if there is a longer-term risk to the child then further longer-term orders will then be used.
A Care Order
This order shares the parental responsibility for the child with the local authority and the child’s parents. In these situations, the Local Authority are given the power to decide where the child should live. In addition, a Care Order means that the Local Authority will take part in making the big decisions affecting this child’s life.
Delegated Authority
Foster carers never have parental responsibility for a child in foster care, so they can only make decisions about them where that authority has been delegated to them by the local authority and/or the child’s parents. The range of decisions delegated to the foster carer will be child specific. They could include everyday decisions about the children and young people they care for, such as allowing them to go to friends’ houses for sleepovers, signing consent forms for school trips and even arranging haircuts. Not all foster carers will have Delegated Authority and will depend on the individual child.
Voluntary Care Arrangements
Known as Section 20 (England) and section76 (Wales) refers to children who are ‘looked after’ by the local authority so all the duties in relation to looked after children contained in legislation, regulations and guidance apply. However, because the arrangement is voluntary, parents retain parental responsibility when children are accommodated under this section and local authorities do not share parental responsibility with parents.
Child Arrangement Order (CAO)
This is a legal order made by the family court that states where a child will live, who a child can spend time with and for how long. It can state when a child will spend part of the week living with or having contact with a parent or other family member. It is important to remember that those holding a CAO do not also confer Parental Responsibility (PR) for the child; this would require a Special Guardianship Order (SGO)
Special Guardianship Order (SGO)
An order made by the family court, Special Guardians are usually family members including the child’s grandparent, aunt, uncle, brother or sister (including by half blood, marriage or civil partnership) or stepparent, and the child has lived with them for at least a year. As a special guardian, they will have parental responsibility for the child until they are 18 years old. They will make both day-to-day decisions about their care and more important decisions about their life.
Placement Order
This gives the Local Authority permission to place a child for adoption with authorised prospective adopters. A care order must already be in place before a Placement Order is sought. The local authority may consider applying for a placement order when it has not been possible to find a suitable family member or acquaintance to look after the child in the long-term.
Adoption Order
This court order completely removes parental responsibility for the child and/or children. The adopters become the child’s legal parents and have full parental responsibility for them. Birth parents must be informed about court proceedings for adoption and can challenge this in court.
How CPOMS supports safeguarding for Care Experienced children
The number and nature of orders under which some children live can be extremely complicated. However, these rules affect simple day to day activities such as getting permission to go on a school trip. It is therefore very important that this information is both secure but also readily at hand to those staff who need to know.
Recording this information on CPOMS StudentSafe can help solve this kind of problem. The platform allows safeguarding leaders to create customisable categories for your records, such as a ‘Care Experienced Category’, as well as subcategories to match the different categories of care experienced children listed earlier. It also allows you to easily change the names of categories in case of changes in legislation or guidance updates.
Reporting to governors and inspectorates on the welfare and wellbeing of ‘care experienced children’ can be a challenging task. However, this important process can be made simple and straight forward by organising it in StudentSafe.
To learn how CPOMS StudentSafe can support your setting in promoting the wellbeing and safeguarding of care experienced children, book a free demo today.
