Case study of fostering team in nuneaton

Case study of fostering team in nuneaton The background to your involvement I am currently on placement with the fostering team in Nuneaton which has in excess of seventy five carers in and around the Nuneaton/Bedworth area. The fostering team consists of 4 full time social workers, whose role encompasses assessment work along with supervisory responsibility of foster carers in line with the Department for Children, Schools and Families ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’ March 2010 which â€Å"sets out how organisations and individuals should work together to save and promote the welfare of children and young people in accordance with the Children Act 1989 and the Children Act 2004† ( (DCSF, March 2010) and to identify placements for children being accommodated under various sections of the Children Act 1989. While on placement I shadowed a social worker involved in supporting 14 yr old Philip’s foster carers to deal with particular behavioural issues that had led to his placement breaking down. The foster carers have 3 foster children currently in their care, Phillip 14, James 15 and David 16. The 2 foster carers Mike 49 and Jane 46 live in a 4 bedroom house in Hinckley. Philip had left the house and was refusing to return, stating that his foster carers did not like him and that he wanted to live on his own. Bed and breakfast accommodation was arranged for him for a few days while the situation was re-assessed and a meeting with the foster carers arranged. Fundamental to all relationships and particularly the interaction between Philip and his mother, Philip and his foster carers and social worker and foster carers, communication is a central component. Analysing how effective communication plays a vital part in this client’s circumstances will form the basis of this discussion. Good communication skills are a principle component of effective social work practice. They include active, attentive and empathetic listening, recognition of verbal and non verbal co mmunication and general formal and informal interview techniques, as Payne has suggested, the application of communication theory gives â€Å"practical help in controlling and understanding relationships and interactions with clients and a technology of interviewing and interpersonal skills† (Payne, 2005, pg 178). Over recent year the children looked after by foster carers have included an increasing proportion of distressed adolescences along with the disruption rate for these placements as being high (Farmer et al 2003). One of the aims of the fostering social worker is to conduct detailed assessments of parenting approaches and strategies used by the foster carers looking after a teenager in a long term placement and how these strategies can change and develop during the course of the placement. Research has been conducted into fostering task with adolescents by Farmer et al (2004), found that they were concerns about the behaviour and well being of children when they move into a new placements. The findings in this case study highlighted a number of factors that contributed to the breakdown in the relationship with the foster carers and Philip and finally the placement. In this situation I had found out the Philip’s social worker had not communicated the nature and context of behavioural issues associated with him to the foster carer’s social worker so that foster carers could have been better informed.