Care Inquiry calls for relationship-focused system

The Care Inquiry report highlights the need to treat all care options – returning home, kinship care, adoption, foster care, special guardianship and residential care – as equally valid.

In addition, it says local authorities should be under a duty to consider the suitability of the match between a social worker and a child when allocating cases, and that they should consider any request by the child to be given a new social worker.

It calls for more focus to be paid to the child’s best interests.

Launched last year, the inquiry includes representatives of all the different forms of care provision – Adoption UK, the British Association for Adoption and Fostering, Family Rights Group, the Fostering Network, Research in Practice, Tact, The Together Trust and The Who Cares? Trust.

The charities fear that a government drive to increase adoptions from care risks distracting attention from improving other forms of care.

Robert Tapsfield, chair of the inquiry steering group, said: “The work of the inquiry left us in no doubt that the care system continues to fail too many children, and that tackling this problem is increasingly urgent and requires a fresh approach.

“What has been particularly striking is that all those giving evidence to the inquiry – children, care leavers, adoptees, social workers, adopters, foster carers, birth families, practitioners, managers and academics – spoke with one voice about the need for the system to make, protect and nurture relationships, not break them.

“The message for government today is that we need to rethink care, and how children are being treated within the system.”

David Simmonds, chair of the Local Government Association’s children and young people board, said local authorities recognise that for some children adoption may be the right option, but for others, long-term stability might best be found by helping them stay with friends and family.

“Councils are working with the government to reform a children’s care system that we agree is in need of improvement,” he said.

“The best interests of children and young people are paramount for local authorities and it will be vital that all parts of the system work together to reform it.”

The inquiry also suggests that children should receive an information pack, compiled by their carers, about the family and home to which they are moving, and also have a choice over where they live.

This would be done through local authorities identifying more than one suitable placement with the young person choosing which one is best for them so they can "test it out" before a final decision is made.

Andrew Webb, president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, said the report identifies a number of areas of best practice.

“We should always be aiming for stability with a placement and making sure it is capable of meeting a child’s needs.”