Support Care: How Family Placement Can Keep Children and Families Together

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This detailed tour of Support Care evidences how it can be central to preventative work with children and families: what it is, how it works, who benefits and why the Government is currently looking to encourage the establishment of its principles and practice throughout the UK. Supplemented by an overview of the policy and legislative context and a concluding report on a research study, each chapter details schemes developed and run in five local authorities. Some are called Neighbourhood Care, Part-time Fostering or Short Breaks rather than Support Care. But the 'stories' about the development and realisation of these schemes - told by parents, carers, practitioners - all describe how a 'lifeline' at a difficult time for a family can prevent a family breakdown, which might result in children being separated from their families. The stories are all about stress, and conflict between parents and children for a variety of underlying reasons...families who don't want to be told what to do, and want to remain in control of their lives, who feel they have a right to get the help they are asking for: just 'a break'. Low-key supportive intervention to help out during a particularly difficult time succeeded when the people involved were committed to open, warm and clear relationships, underpinned by integrity. When the carers and social workers were experienced as 'kind', that was probably one of the most important factors that contributed to the positive outcomes.

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Dr Helen Cosis-Brown is Curriculum Leader for Social Work at Middlesex University. She was a contributor to Social Work: Themes, Issues and Critical Debates (R. Adams, L. Dominelli and M. Payne, (eds), Macmillan 2002) and in Signposts in Fostering, (M. Hill (ed) BAAF 1999) amongst others. Ena Fry has been development worker for the Fostering Network's Young People's Project since 1990. She is a member of Department of Education and Skills' Children's Task Force. She was a contributor to The RHP Companion to Foster Care (Ed. Ann Wheal, RHP 2005) and The RHP Companion to Leaving Care (ed. Ann Wheal, RHP 2002). Joy Howard developed and coordinated Support Care in Bradford from 1996 - 2005. She is currently consultant to the Fostering Network and is in the process of setting up a Support Care National Network. She was a contributor to Working with Parents (Ed. Ann Wheal, RHP 2000) and to The RHP Companion to Foster Care (Ed. Ann Wheal 2005)