Legal Update: Staying put arrangements

Almost 75 per cent of looked-after children in the UK are in foster placements. Significant changes to the law ushered in by the Children and Families Act 2014, which came into effect this month, will allow young people the opportunity to stay in their foster placements until the age of 21.

Looked-after children who are placed in foster care will usually become "former relevant children" when they turn 18 and enter adulthood. They are no longer looked-after children but are young people to whom their respective local authorities may still owe social care duties. If assessment and planning for those young people is done properly, such processes should start when the child turns 16. The local authority should turn its attention to assessing the young person's needs as they transition to adulthood. This will usually commence with a needs assessment and lead towards the production of a pathway plan, which will set out the blueprint for the young person's immediate and longer-term future as they prepare to leave the care of the local authority. It has long been the assumption for young people living with foster carers that they will leave their foster carers or families and move into semi-independent accommodation or even into their own non-supported accommodation if they are assessed as able to make that transition.