Staying Put

A Staying Put arrangement is where a Former Relevant child, after ceasing to be Looked After, remains in the former foster home where they were placed immediately before they ceased to be Looked After, beyond the age of 18.

It is the duty of the local authority:

• To monitor the Staying Put arrangement; and
• To provide advice, assistance and support to the Former Relevant child and the former foster parent with a view to maintaining the Staying Put arrangement (this must include financial support), until the child reaches the age of 21 (unless the local authority consider that the Staying Put arrangement is not consistent with the child’s welfare).

Under the Care Leavers (England) Regulations 2010, Planning Transition into Adulthood for Care Leavers Guidance and Government Guidance Staying Put - Arrangements for Care Leavers Aged 18 and Above to Stay on With Their Former Foster Carers (2013), the Local Authority must provide information about extending foster placements post-18.

The intention of Staying Put arrangements is to ensure that young people can remain with their former foster carers until they are prepared for adulthood, can experience a transition akin to their peers, avoid social exclusion and be more likely to avert a subsequent housing and tenancy breakdown.

Note that the term ‘arrangement’ should be used rather than ‘placement’ - the term ‘placement’ denotes a situation where the local authority arranged and placed the child with a foster carer. Once the child reaches the age of eighteen and legal adulthood, the local authority is no longer making a placement, but facilitating a Staying Put arrangement for the young person.

Consideration will need to be given to the impact on foster carers' approval and their terms of approval, including the numbers approved for, and whether this number includes the Staying Put young person.

Young people living with foster carers supported by independent providers should be treated in the same way as those young people living with local authority in-house foster carers when consideration is given to a ‘Staying Put’ arrangement. Local authorities should have discussions with independent fostering providers at an early stage regarding the option of a ‘Staying Put’ arrangement. This discussion should include the amount of allowance the local authority will pay the former foster carer.

If a young person feels that his/her wish to remain with their former foster carer has not been properly considered by the local authority or they are unhappy with the way in which the local authority has acted, they may wish to speak to their Independent Reviewing Officer who chairs their reviews before they turn 18 and request a review of their Pathway Plan. The young person should be told of their right to use their local authority’s complaints procedure to voice their concerns, and of their right to have an independent Advocate.

The intention for a young person to remain in their current placement in a Staying Put arrangement should be identified as early as possible.

Discussion with the young person, their social worker, Supervising social worker, current carers and their leaving care worker should begin at the earliest opportunity and made clear within their pathway planning and through Looked after children’s reviews.

If the young person wants to remain with their current carers post 18 and the carer / carers are in agreement with this plan the young person’s social worker will need to attend LAC Panel for approval and advise the IFA SSW of the proposed change in adult composition to the household. The SSW should also support the young person to complete a DBS application form.

The young person’s social worker should liaise the Staying Put Co-ordinator who will advise the young person’s social worker about the formalities and process of staying put as required, and, dependant on the current status of the carer, will set up and supervise the arrangement post 18 years, please see below:

If the current carer is an internal recruited carer and is to remain a foster carer for other younger children in placement the current SSW will be responsible for the supervision of the placement (including the young person who is Staying Put).

If the current carer will no longer be fostering children and resigning from their role as a foster carer with MCC the Staying Put Service will supervise the staying Put arrangement.

If the current carer is an IFA carer the Staying Put social worker will supervise the Staying Put arrangement.

Prior to the young person’s 18th Birthday the Staying Put Co-ordinator liaises with current IFA Supervising Social Worker to introduce themselves and confirm that the young person is intending to remain in placement and ensuring that the agency are aware of ‘change to the adult composition of the household’.

Staying Put Worker or Co-ordinator will visit the placement address to undertake Health and Safety check of the address and ‘Living Together’ agreement is left for young person and carer to review. Carer signs Staying Put agreement including payment details.

Staying Put Worker or Co-ordinator attends the young person’s final LAC Review. Arrangement for first staying Put meeting is made.

When the young person turns 18, the first meeting (within 10 working days) is undertaken with carer and young person. Safe Home agreement and Living Together agreement are discussed and signed by young person, former foster carer and Staying Put worker. An independence plan is discussed and targets for independence agreed as a group. Where any targets cannot be met by the former foster carer agreement should be made about who will make relevant referrals.

Staying Put Worker or Co-ordinator triggers new payment under Staying Put for former foster Carer.

Former foster carer is provided with contact details for named Staying Put Worker including emergency numbers. Training and support schedule provided.

Former foster carer is required to meet with the designated Staying Put worker at a minimum twice a year (every 6 months). The Staying Put Worker will arrange to have a telephone conversation with the former foster carer twice a year or as and when necessary.

The Staying Put Worker will check electronic records to view the young person’s activity and involvement with their Leaving Care Worker. They will speak to the Leaving Care Worker to check- 1). Young person is safe and well. 2). Young person is in education, work or training. 3). Young person's needs are being met in placement. 4). Review any plans for leaving placement.

Following the young person's 18th birthday, the legal basis on which they occupy the property (former foster home) changes (the legal term is that the young person becomes an 'excluded licensee' lodging in the home) - this should not denote that the young person will be treated differently than they were as a fostered child.

From the age of eighteen, young people are no longer legally ‘in care’ or Looked After and therefore fostering arrangements and legislation relating to children placed with foster carers no longer applies. While Fostering Regulations will no longer legally apply to these arrangements, key standards should continue to govern the expectations of the placement when the young person reaches 18.

This should include:

• A system for considering if a person’s approval as a foster carer should be ended and for implementing the deregistration/termination process in circumstances where the foster carer is unlikely to be caring for any further foster children in the future;
• A system for reviewing and approving the Staying Put arrangement and carer/s to ensure that the arrangement complies with local authority expectations;
• Safeguarding and risk assessment checks on household members and in certain circumstances regular visitors;
• Health and safety requirements (as a minimum this should comply with landlord and licensee/tenant requirements);
• Regular supervision and support, possibly, from their fostering supervising social worker; and
• Opportunities to attend appropriate training.

The Local Authority will need to assess individual circumstances and consider the appropriateness of all of these checks particularly where the young person is the only person placed/living with their carer/s and it is not envisaged that further children will be placed. In circumstances where it is clear that the carer will not be fostering any further children, it may be deemed appropriate to terminate their approval as a foster carer. In situations where it is possible that they may foster again in the future, it would be inappropriate to terminate their approval, given the length of time that re-approval would take. Where a foster carer’s approval is terminated, it will be necessary to ensure that the Staying Put arrangement continues to meet appropriate standards.

Safeguarding arrangements will need to be sufficient, including Disclosure and Barring Service checks on over 18 year olds and issues relating to fostered children in households. Where foster children are in placement, the foster carers will need to be returned to the fostering panel due to a change in circumstances as the child/young person Staying Put will have reached adulthood and become an adult member of the fostering household. As such, they will require a valid Disclosure and Barring Service check. To ensure that the check (and possible subsequent risk assessment) is completed by the child/young person’s eighteenth birthday the process will need to commence in sufficient time.

The local authority will discuss with the former foster carer whether they require any particular training and guidance to help support the young person. The type of support that a former foster carer will need to provide in a ‘Staying Put’ arrangement is likely to be different to that they provided when fostering the young person. It should be explored with the former foster carer the type of training and support they think they will require, particularly in helping the young person develop their independent life skills. Whether the former foster carer is from the local authority or an independent fostering service, careful consideration should be given to continued support which could include peer support.

Whilst the level of financial support payable will depend upon individual needs and circumstances, former foster carers will be paid an allowance that will cover all reasonable costs of supporting the care leaver to remain living with them. Clear information will be provided to foster carers on the financial support which may be provided for Staying Put arrangements, in order to help foster carers plan well in advance whether they wish to participate in such arrangements.

When deciding upon the level of financial support payable, careful consideration will have to be given to the impact of the ‘Staying Put’ arrangement on the family’s financial position. The impact will vary from family to family.

It will be necessary to consider:

• How extending placements will impact on the allowances provided by the Local Authority and whether other funding, e.g. funding for housing related support, will contribute to meeting Staying Put costs;
• Any financial contributions from the young person from their wages, salary, benefits or educational allowances. Depending on their circumstances, young people who remain in a Staying Put arrangement may be able to claim means tested benefits for their personal needs from their eighteenth birthday;
• How the income tax, national insurance and welfare benefits situation of carers may be affected by post-18 payments. Where a young person continues to reside with their former foster carer after their eighteenth birthday on a non-commercial and familial basis, and the child was Looked After immediately prior to their eighteenth birthday, and the payments are made by the local authority to the carer under Section 23C of the Children Act 1989 (continuing functions in respect of former relevant children), then the payments are disregarded in calculating the carers’ entitlement to means tested benefits. When a commercial arrangement is made, (i.e. any element of the cost of the arrangement comes from a source other than Section 23C), the non-section 23C element will be taken into account in the calculation of the carer’s own means tested benefit claim;
• Insurance issues including liability and household insurance. Staying Put carers should be provided with information about liability insurance cover in situations where Staying Put young people may make an allegation against a foster child in placement, or against their Staying Put carer/s, or an allegation is made against the Staying Put young person. The majority of foster carers hold public liability insurance.

Living away from the former foster carer’s home for temporary periods such as attending higher education courses should not preclude a ‘Staying Put’ arrangement. This might include a residential further education institution; undertaking induction training for the armed services or other training or employment programmes that require a young person to live away from home.

The Staying Put framework is aimed at former relevant children who require an extended period with their former foster carer/s due to delayed maturity, vulnerability and/or in order to complete their education or training. Where young people have an on-going cognitive disability and meet the adult services Fair Access to Care Services criteria (Putting People First), foster placements should be converted to Adult Placements/Shared Lives Arrangements when the child reaches their eighteenth birthday. This is important to ensure that both the young person and the carer have a formal regulatory and safeguarding framework that addresses their respective needs.

The Staying Put arrangement extends until:

• The young person leaves the Staying Put arrangement;
  
  or

• The young person reaches their twenty-first birthday.

Local authorities may wish to continue supporting a young person beyond age 21 if it meets their individual needs, such as finishing their course of education.

The local authority will want to ensure that the end of a ‘Staying Put’ arrangement is not another ‘cliff edge’ for the young person but a gradual transition to independent living. Procedures should be agreed at the outset about how any wish by the carer to bring the arrangement to an end should be managed. The social worker/personal adviser should discuss with the young person their transition from such an arrangement to another type of accommodation and agree the type of support the young person will require. These arrangements should be developed alongside joint protocols with the housing authority, setting out how access to social housing and care leavers ‘priority need’ status will be discharged.

An excluded licensee can be asked to leave the property by the Staying Put carer, who must give ‘reasonable notice’. In extreme circumstances it may be considered reasonable for the carer to give very short notice and ask the young person to leave on the same day.

If a young person in a Staying Put arrangement dies up to and including the age of 24, notifications should be made in accordance with the procedure on Notifications of Significant Events (External Notifications).