PLEASE NOTE: New Standards Published

April 2011: The Standards no longer apply, Tri.x have published a web enabled version of the new Children’s Homes and Fostering Standards, please follow this link:

www.minimumstandards.org

1. Planning for Care	Size:
Support to individual children

	OUTCOME Children receive care which helps to prepare them for and support them into adulthood.
	STANDARD 7
7.1	All children are given individualised support in line with their needs and wishes, and children identified as having particular needs receive help, guidance and support when needed or requested.
7.2	The registered person ensures, so far as is feasible, the provision of individually appropriate personal, health, social and sex and relationship education for each resident child, including disabled children.
7.3	The registered person actively promotes the involvement of all children in the home’s social group, counters isolation of individuals by others, nurtures friendships between children, and supports those children who for any reason do not readily ‘fit in’ to the resident group.
7.4	Support is provided for any child for whom English is not their first language (or who use alternative methods of communication), enabling them to communicate their needs, wishes and concerns, and to communicate with staff and other children within the home.
7.5	Children are able to approach any member of the home’s staff with personal concerns, not only their key worker.
7.6	The registered person ensures, as far as possible, that professional services are provided where necessary to help children develop individual identity in relation to their gender, disability, religious, racial, cultural or linguistic background or sexual orientation.
7.7	Support and advice is provided to any child in the home who is, or has been, involved in abuse or prostitution, whether as a victim of abuse or in abusing others, and the child is involved in the planning of any such programme of support.
7.8	Each child has at least one person, independent of the home and the child’s placing authority, whom they may contact directly about personal problems or concerns at the home (such a person may for example be an advocate, children’s rights officer, adult family member, personal adviser, befriender, visitor on behalf of an organisation carrying on the home, independent visitor, or mentor).
7.9	Children are supported to take controlled risks (appropriate to their age and understanding) that are relevant and necessary to negotiating their place in the community. Significant risks are defined in the placement plan and an appropriate risk assessment is made and recorded.
7.10	Children whose placement plan requires specialist external services for them (e.g. for recreation, health or education) receive those services in practice. Staff co-operate in implementing any programmes associated with specialist services such as speech and language therapy or physiotherapy programmes.
7.11	Subject to the agreement of the placing authority, relevant personal, educational and health information concerning each child is passed on to that child’s subsequent placement.
7.12	Any specific therapeutic technique is only used with any child at the home if specified in the child’s placement plan and specifically approved by the child’s placing authority and, where the placing authority does not have parental responsibility, by the child’s parent (or parent if the child is not placed by a local authority or voluntary organisation), and if the safe and effective use of the technique is known to be supported by evidence. It is carried out only by, on the directions of, or under the supervision of a member of staff or other practitioner holding a current recognised qualification in the therapy concerned, whose qualification the home has verified as valid and appropriate directly with the awarding body or relevant register. Any member of staff using such a technique is subject to supervision in using the technique by a person outside the home and not responsible for the home, who is qualified and experienced in the therapy concerned.
7.13	Appropriate support is provided for children who are refugees and for asylum seeking children, taking into account the particular circumstances of each child’s flight from his or her country of origin and the advice of specialist agencies where necessary. [Regulations 11, 20, Children Act 1989, Sections 22,61,64]