This chapter has been updated to reflect Practice Guidance on Special Guardianship (Family Justice Council, June 2020). See in particular Section 9, Expectations of the Local Authority by the Court.

• Holidays and School Trips Outside the UK.

This new chapter provides guidance on the storage of personal data (including photographs) on mobile devices. 'Personal data' is any information about an identifiable living individual.

'Mobile devices' includes memory sticks, mobile telephones including smartphones, tablet technologies, netbooks and laptops.

This chapter has been amended to reflect that, sine 29 June 2018:

Within 5 working days of becoming aware of a serious incident local authorities must;

• Notify the National Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel (the Panel); and
• Notify Safeguarding Partners, or Local Safeguarding Children Board where the new partnership arrangements are not yet in place, to undertake a 15 day Rapid Review in line with the Child Safeguarding Practice Review process into all serious child safeguarding cases promptly, and complete this within 15 working days of becoming aware of the incident.

This chapter has been updated in line with the Children and Social Work Act 2017 and related statutory guidance which require schools, through the designated teacher to provide support to Previously Looked After Children.

This chapter has been updated in line with the Children and Social Work Act 2017 and associated statutory guidance.

These changes relate to the status of 'Previously Looked After Children'. A Previously Looked After Child is one who is no longer looked after in England and Wales because they are the subject of an Adoption, Special Guardianship or Child Arrangements Order which includes arrangements relating to with whom the child is to live, or when the child is to live with any person, or has been adopted from 'state care' outside England and Wales.

This chapter has been updated in line with the Children and Social Work Act 2017 and revised statutory guidance.

These changes relate to the status of 'Previously Looked After Children'. A Previously Looked After Child is one who is no longer looked after in England and Wales because they are the subject of an Adoption, Special Guardianship or Child Arrangements Order which includes arrangements relating to with whom the child is to live, or when the child is to live with any person, or has been adopted from 'state care' outside England and Wales.

The following note regarding the change of a child's first name has been added into Section 2, Obtaining Agency Approval to Adoption Plan.

This chapter has been updated in line with the Children and Social Work Act 2017 and revised statutory guidance which require schools, through the Designated Teacher for Looked After Children, to offer support to Previously Looked After Children.

Section 5, The Conduct of Adoption Reviews, bullet point 1.f has been amended to reflect the status of adopted children as being 'previously looked after' when considering their educational needs. A link to DfE guidance on Promoting the Education of Looked After and Previously Looked After children has also been added. In Section 5, a new bullet point 1.j has been added to include the following:

This chapter has been updated in line with the Children and Social Work Act 2017 and revised statutory guidance which require schools, through the Designated Teacher, to provide support to Previously Looked After Children.

Additional information has been added into Section 1.3, Section 20 Accommodation), in line with recent case-law which considered the use of Section 20 Accommodation by local authorities These cases were clear that:

• A local authority failing to permit a parent to remove a child in circumstances within section 20(8) acts unlawfully; and
• The relevant information that a parent would need to be able to understand, retain and weigh up in order to have competency to consent to the accommodation of a child is as follows:
  • That the child will be staying with someone chosen by the local authority, probably a foster carer;
  • That the parent can change their mind about the arrangements, and request the child back from accommodation at any time;
  • That the parent will be able to see the child.

Section 1, Planning for Permanence has been revised to reflect the updated list of considerations (as amended by Section 9 Children and Social Work Act 2017) which must be referenced whenever a court or adoption agency is coming to a decision relating to the adoption of a child. Following the introduction of the Children and Social Work Act, this list now includes consideration of the relationship which the child has with relatives, with any person who is a prospective adopter with whom the child is placed and with any other person in relation to whom the court or agency considers the relationship to be relevant.

Section 2, The Supervision Order Plan has been updated to include the following:

• The Supervision Order plan should be specific and purposeful in its aim to reduce risk and build on strengths to support the child in their care arrangement;
• For each Supervision Order, consideration must be given as to whether the best type of plan for the child is a Child Protection Plan, or a Child in Need Plan;
  • A Child Protection Plan should be considered appropriate for a minimum of 6 months where a child is returning to carers in whose care the significant harm originally occurred;
  • A Child in Need plan may be considered appropriate where a child is going to be living with carers who were not responsible for the significant harm e.g. a Special Guardianship Order with grandparents.

A note has also been added into Section 3, Child in Need Meetings and Reviews to remind workers that at any time it may be necessary to "step up" a Child in Need case to Child Protection and this should always be considered an option if the level of concern or risk begins to escalate.

The following information has been added into Section 5, Support Provided by the Supervising Social Worker (During Placement):

• The Safer Caring Plan should be updated as required to reflect any changes in household circumstances and any health and safety issues including the addition of any new pets to the household including the environment in which the pets are kept.

Section 3, Chairing of Secure Accommodation Reviews has been amended as follows:

• The Secure Accommodation Panel should be chaired by a person independent of the care planning for the child, including line managers and the Independent Conference and Reviewing Officer. Given the need to focus on the Section 25, Children Act 1989 criteria issues, the chair should also be independent of any resource allocation, etc. but should have sufficient experience and knowledge to carry out the task;
• An Independent Conference and Reviewing Officer may sit as one of the other two Panel members (not as part of the ICRO function);
• Section 8, After the Secure Accommodation Review has also been updated.

• Services to Children in Derbyshire - Tiers of Help and Support;
• Derbyshire County Council Children's Services and Partner Agencies;
• Contacts and Referrals;
• E-Safety and Facebook Guidance.

The following information has been added to this procedure:

• Where a prospective adopter enquires about inter-country adoption, information should also be given about the policy on fees and an estimation of the costs the prospective adopter will have to pay to the agency and the Department for Education;
• In relation to references, applicants will be asked to provide the names of three personal referees, who are adults (not more than one of whom should be related to them), have known the applicant for at least two years and who are happy to provide personal references on the prospective adopter. A written report must be prepared of the interviews held with each of the referees.

The following updates have been made in relation to the Child's Permanence Report:

• The Child's Permanence Report must be written by the worker who knows the child best and is also a qualified social worker;
• The Report should include a summary, written by the agency's medical adviser, of the state of the child's health, health history and any need for health care which might arise in the future, and a Chronology of the decisions and actions taken by the agency with respect to the child; and
• Those parts of the Report that contain factual information about the birth family should be shared with the relevant family members to enable them to confirm their accuracy and agree to it being passed on to a child in due course. Any such agreement should be clearly recorded on the child's case record. Each of the child's parents should be shown those parts of the Report which set out their views and wishes, and given the opportunity, if they so wish, to express these in their own words.

See Section 2, Obtaining Agency Approval to Adoption Plan for further details.

This new chapter reflects the statutory guidance 'Ceasing to look after a child' in 'Care Planning, Placement and Case Review Regulations (2015)' as amended by the 'Care Planning and Fostering (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2015' and Working Together to Safeguard Children 2015.

This chapter has been updated in line with Looked-after Children: Contact with Siblings - Update to Children Act 1989 Guidance and Regulations - Volume 2: Care Planning, Placement and Case Review. Additional information has been added in relation to sibling placement as follows:

• In the case of siblings, wherever it is in the best interests of each individual child, they should be placed together. Where they cannot be placed together, they must be supported to understand why they cannot live together, and there should be robust plans for contact between them, so far as this is consistent with their welfare.

Section 1.7, Ending of Placement, has been updated to take account of recent case-law in which the High Court stated that not less than fourteen days notice of a removal of the child should be given to the parents, save in an emergency.

This chapter has been updated following the publication of Looked-after Children: Contact with Siblings - Update to Children Act 1989 Guidance and Regulations - Volume 2: Care Planning, Placement and Case Review.

Additional Information has been added into Section 1, Approving and Planning Contact as follows:

• There is a presumption of continued contact between the child and their family while the child is Looked After, unless it is not reasonably practicable or consistent with the child's welfare;
• Contact arrangements should be focused on, and shaped around, the child's needs. Each child's wishes and needs for contact should be individually considered and regularly assessed;
• Where contact arrangements are contrary to the child's wishes, the child must be given a full explanation by the Social Worker and this must be recorded on the child's electronic record.

The following note has been added into Section 1, Holidays in the UK:

• For children who are in a long term placement and the carers have Delegated Authority, depending upon the nature of the delegation agreed, it may be the case that the carers are able to makes decisions about holidays themselves. However, good practice should ensure that decisions by the carers are shared in a timely way with the Supporting Foster Care Social Worker and / or child's allocated practitioner.

This chapter has been reviewed and updated following publication of revised statutory guidance on planning transition to adulthood for care leavers. The following has been added:

• The Personal Adviser is seen as a 'function' rather than a specific person and the local authority should consider delegating it wholly or partially to the best person able to carry out the role;
• The local authority should have a flexible approach to supporting young people, and has a duty to accept young people aged 16 and 17 years back into care if a young person's decision to move into semi-independent accommodation, leave care or decline leaving care services is then identified as premature;
• Bed and Breakfast Accommodation is not considered as suitable accommodation other than in 'exceptional circumstances';
• The local authority should make every effort not to disrupt a young person's education during their key stage 4 years, both in terms of their school and care placement unless the circumstances clearly require this.

• Children and Families who go Missing (Derbyshire SCB);
• Children Abused Through Sexual Exploitation (Derbyshire SCB).

This chapter has been updated in line with the Children and Families Act 2014 and the overall aim of speeding up the adoption process. The chapter has been updated throughout and should be re-read. Information has been added in relation to:

• Fostering for Adoption (Sections 1 and 5.4);
• Adoption Register (Section 9);
• Duty to provide information on adoption support services (Sections 1 and 2);
• Ethnicity (Section 15.3).

This chapter provides a summary of Departmental Advice issued by the Department for Education in 2014 on Working with Foreign Authorities in Child Protection Cases. It provides the following:

• A set of principles for social workers when working on child protection cases where the child has links to a foreign country;
• A summary of the main international legislation;
• Information about where social workers should go for help when seeking to obtain information or contacts abroad about a child and/or their family; and
• Sign-posts to other relevant guidance.

This chapter deals with the placement of a child with carers who are dually approved, i.e. approved both as prospective adopters and as local authority foster carers.