THE death of Baby P in 2007 sent shockwaves across the UK and posed searching questions about safeguarding children who end up in the care system.
In the aftermath of the tragedy, the number of child protection plans – where a family must follow specific actions and undergo regular checks, many of which are unannounced – rose in Notts from 444 in April 2009 to 772 in April 2012.
The number of children in care across the county has risen from 545 in April 2009 to 846 in September this year. These children are in children's homes, with foster carers or looking for adopters.
These high numbers have increased pressure on children's social care at Notts County Council and caused it to re-think its approach to caring for children who need child protection plans and those who require a new home through adoption.
Carole Green has been a social worker since 1994. In September last year, she was selected to work as part of a new permanence team, based at Meadowhouse, in Mansfield, which prepares children for the process of adoption.
The team was set up to deal with the increase in the number of children who were being removed from danger following the case of Baby P, who died at the hands of his mother, her lover and his brother – despite numerous visits by social workers, the police and a range of other professionals.
She says: "It's had a knock-on effect. Nationally, it's recognised that there are more children in need of foster care and, as a result of that, many more children aren't able to return to their birth parents."
Prior to the new permanence team being set up, Carole was part of a team that dealt with both safeguarding issues and with children who were up for adoption.
"We had competing demands," says Carole. "It's not fair when you tell a six-year-old that you're going to see them in the morning, but then a child protection issue comes up in another case and you then have to say 'sorry, I can't come today'. Children don't understand that, do they?"
Carole can have as many as 18 to 20 children on her caseload at any one time. There are about 200 children in Notts currently at some stage of the adoption process.
In February this year, the council's adoption service was judged as "satisfactory" with outstanding areas of service, so there's still some improvement the team can make. And in autumn last year, the council was rated as "adequate" in an inspection of its children's services as a whole, and a re-inspection of its safeguarding services specifically was rated as "adequate with good capacity to improve". It's clear some positive changes have been made since its safeguarding services were judged as "inadequate" in March 2010 and its overall children's services were judged as "performing poorly" in December that year.
Her new role means that Carole concentrates solely on children who have been granted a placement care order by the court and need to be adopted. These children are normally already in foster care, so Carole doesn't have the concern of safeguarding issues – the county council considers adoption for around a quarter of all the looked-after children.
The aim is to try to place a child within six months. So far this year, 57 per cent of children going through this process in Notts have been placed within seven months.
Carole says: "That child who's been in foster care, waiting and knowing that the judge has already said the council is going to find them a new home, they feel uncertain. They don't know where they're going to spend their next birthday or Christmas. It's very important that we do our utmost to get that child with their permanent family. Previously, they maybe would be in foster care waiting and waiting – and in a child's life, a week feels like a month."
While the child is waiting to be placed, Carole works with them and their birth parents to create a life story book, which tells who their birth parents are and how the court came to the decision to remove them from their family and place them with adopters.
"We explain to them through play and books that a judge has made the decision and they wouldn't be returning to whoever they lived with prior to that, and we're looking to find them a 'forever family'," she says.
They use the term "forever family" as adopters come in all forms – it could be a mum and dad, two mums, two dads or a single parent.
One of the biggest challenges of Carole's job is to place sibling groups with new families, as they're often seen as an overwhelming prospect.
Since the permanence team was formed in August 2011 they've placed three sibling groups of three and seven sibling groups of two.
Carole recently placed a sibling group of three children who were all under six years old. In her career of almost 20 years, it was the first time she'd placed a group of three.
"It's more of a challenge than a younger, single child," she says. "It's just a case for adopters to appreciate that they will face challenges but the sibling group have formed a relationship and we want to preserve that where possible."
Carole believes this new way of working will help more children find permanent homes in the long term.
She says: "That's what children want, they want that feeling of permanence forever."
What are your experiences of the care system? E-mail newsdesk@nottinghampostgroup.co.uk
