Break Fostering Additional Support Plan Policy

The children and young people our carers look after deserve the very best care and our foster carers in turn deserve the very best support. Break will provide this support in the form of an Additional Support Plan (ASP) for each foster placement. For all new carers, the scope of the ASP will be initially discussed during the carer assessment stage (Form F), further considered during the matching process and then formalised after a match is made at the child's first Placement Planning Meeting. The ASP will be subsequently reviewed at the child's statutory review or sooner in response to changing circumstances in our carers' and/or the young people's lives.

For all existing placements, the Break fostering service will formalise an ASP for each child and carer in consultation with the 'support carer' where there is a link.

The ASP will be tailored to each child's and their carers' unique needs and will be fully funded by Break. This means that it will need to be flexible in nature responding to the child's and their carer's needs as they may change over time. It will contain a menu of support services:

• The first type of support will be the direct care offered by Break's 'respite carers' and may involve overnight stays with the carer or daytime care. Wherever possible, the same carer will look after the same child to enable a relationship to grow and flourish. The number of days provided will vary according to the needs of each child and their carers but will require additional funding from the local authority if the amount of support needed exceeds 20 nights in any year. In order to remove any negative references associated with the word 'respite', Break's foster carers who are registered to provide this service will henceforward be known as 'support carers' and they will provide 'overnight/stayover' or 'day' care for the child. Our 'support carers' will be fully integrated into the team around the child and involved in the planning for the child; it is vital that there is good two way communication between our full-time and support carers with a handover conversation before and after each stay. Joint supervision between the Supervising Social Worker, full-time and linked support carer will also be built into the supervisory arrangements;
• The second type of support will take the form of structured day-time activity for the children and young people that is directly provided by Break staff through its Activity Breaks team. Activities will be carefully designed to suit the child's needs. The Activity Breaks team will meet the child and full-time carer before the service commences and the team will feedback to the carer after each activity;
• The third type of support will take the form of events that Break will organise on behalf of the children we look after. This could take the form of art workshops or a day outdoors in an area of natural beauty or a sports activity. Break welcomes the participation of our foster carers in such events alongside the children and our staff teams. Break has a participation team which designs and delivers these activities alongside our young people;
• The fourth type of support consists of Break facilitated access to opportunities for our young people. Break is supported by many benefactors who either directly provide or will fund opportunities for our children and young people. This could take the form of access to a particular opportunity such as a special excursion or a residential holiday; recent opportunities for our young people have included a sailing holiday. Many of these opportunities require the young people to be able to participate on an independent basis. Break has a specialist trust and grants team who identify charitable funding to support young people's ambitions which could also give some welcome space for our carers during the vacation periods;
• The fifth type of support consists of therapeutic parenting support provided for our carers by Break's therapeutic service. Where identified as a need, Break will allocate a therapist to work directly with our carers to understand and manage the child's behaviour and develop the resilience of our carers. Break also delivers a monthly carers support group the timing of which will be flexible to adapt to the needs of our carers;
• We will also explore how we can organise other forms of support for our carers and children; one identified need is for a 'baby-sitting' or 'young people minding' service and we will consider how this might be facilitated within our resources.

Where the ASP requires an intensive application of a particular type of resource because of the particular needs of the child which exceeds the costs recovered within the placement charge, Break will seek additional funding from the local authority.

Break appreciates that carers' support needs may change over time and these will constantly be kept under review within the fostering supervision process. Our Fostering Social Workers will always keep in mind the demands upon the health and wellbeing of our carers in undertaking the foster parenting task and this will always be a priority for discussion within supervision.

The aim of the ASP is to work in harmony with the family and friendship networks that the carers will have; we recognise that each carers' networks are unique to them and that these networks can offer both direct, informal support for the carer but also an invaluable opportunity for the child to feel part of an extended family.

The ASP will also work in harmony with the direct support that can sometimes be offered by the child's own family networks including the possibility of staying contact where this is agreed within the Care and Placement Plan.