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Contents

1. Introduction
2. What to Record?
3. Legal Obligations
4. Filing the Records
5. Sharing the Records
6. Additional Information

1. Introduction

Foster carers are increasingly being asked to provide information about foster children as part of their caring role. This information may contribute towards maintaining a history of the placement, assessments, participation in meetings or court appearances. Carers should be able to provide their own written reports for these occasions needing accurate and thorough recording. Essentially these records are being made as part of the child’s file and should be viewed and written in that way.

There are many reasons why it is vital to keep a careful record of events covering all aspects of a placement. It can:

• Contribute to the child or young person’s care plan;
• Provide an accurate record of behaviours, events or incidents;
• Assist in evidencing the progress of the placement over time and give a picture of the child’s pattern of behaviour;
• Help foster carers review their practice;
• Reduce the risk to the carer and their family of an allegation or a complaint, while the child is in care or retrospectively;
• Contribute to a child or young person’s life story work.

It is important that foster carers also maintain a personal diary or record for themselves of what happens in a placement. This remains their record of a placement and can be useful if foster carers need to recall details of what has happened in a placement at a later date or once the placement has ended.

2. What to Record?

The child’s records need a consistent method of day-to-day recording to assist in the accuracy of information. Dates should be recorded beside each entry. Information recorded should be factual and not personal opinion unless it is clearly stated as such, i.e. ‘In my opinion…’.

Recording should also include:

• Details of a disclosure or allegation the child makes and what the foster carer did in relation to this;
• Details of contact visits and any other form of contact such as letters, cards, telephone calls, etc.;
• Any behavioural matters, noting actual behaviours and how they were dealt with;
• Any significant milestones in development, e.g. first word, first day at school;
• Comments the child or young person makes that give you concern (exact words should be recorded);
• Details of any theft or damages caused by the child or young person (both inside and outside of the home);
• Details of any specific incident, events or changes of circumstances in your household;
• Issues related to safer caring;
• Details of any visit or contacts by the department or other professionals and those initiated by the foster carer.
• Details of any work undertaken by the foster carer on life-story work, understanding of cultural and identity issues or work agreed with the child’s social worker or the supervising social worker.

It is important to record positive as well as negative events, developments and situations.

When recording in a foster carer’s own diary it is best to use initials to identify children, parents etc. because this helps maintain confidentiality over time in the event of theft or other loss of the diary.

3. Legal Obligations

Any records relating to a Looked After Child are regulated as personal data by the Data Protection Act 1998. The Data Protection Act 1998 came into force in March 2000 and covers access to any records kept either as hard copies or on computer. The Act increases the rights of the public to have access to any records that may be held on them. For this reason it is important that foster carers make records in a factual manner and that the records are kept secure.

Children or young people can ask to see their records at any time and should be given the opportunity to see them. However, foster carers should not share these records with children or young people directly. The written information about a child or young person should be given to the child’s social worker. The department will then compile the records to be shared. This is to ensure that third party information is removed. Local authorities can refuse access to records if there is information within them that is considered to have the potential to cause serious harm to the physical or mental health of the service user.

The Act requires that no records of children are stored on computer or on a disk by carers. A computer can be used to produce records or reports but these should not be saved. There are two good reasons for this requirement. Firstly, records saved on a computer can be altered at a later date and secondly, computers can be accessed by others in the family but can also be accessed by computer hackers.

This also applies to use of e-mail to communicate with other professionals including supervising social workers or the child’s social worker. Never give a child’s full name, address or detailed information regarding their whereabouts or circumstances in an e-mail. All records relating to children should be printed off, signed and dated immediately. Any work on the computer should then be erased.

All hard copies of records about a child should be kept confidential. Records must be kept in a secure place in a locked storage container/cabinet.

The above legislation also applies to foster carers’ personal diaries regarding information and opinions about children and they are working with e.g. personal diaries should not be maintained on a PC. You can use the Foster Carers’ Diary provided by the department to maintain your own record or another file, but the same rules about keeping it secure should be applied.

4. Filing the Records

Information about children or young people needs to be recorded and stored separately. Each child (including siblings) should have their own record. You will be given a ring binder when you begin fostering. All of your recordings and all information you are given about the child or young person (i.e., care plans, placement records, red health book) should be kept in this file.

Your personal diaries do not form part of the filing system. You may keep these. It is still important that what they record about a looked after child is kept confidential.

At the end of a placement all the information you have kept for the child or young person’s file should go to their social worker so it can be placed with their records. If you need to look at the information at a later date you can request to do so.

5. Sharing the Records

It is important that foster carers regularly share the records for the child’s file with their supervising social worker during the course of the placement. Supervising social workers should sign the records to confirm they have seen them as part of their supervisory visits. Foster carers’ personal diaries do not need to be seen or signed.

Children and young people should also be aware that foster carers have a responsibility to write down information about the day-to-day events of the placement and they should understand the reasons for doing this. This information is part of the Department’s fostering pledge and is shared with children when they first enter a placement. With some events you may want to consider whether it is appropriate if the young person contributes to the recording. This can be discussed further with your supervising social worker.

6. Additional Information

Every new foster carer should receive a copy of the Fostering Network’s booklet, ‘Record Keeping’ and read it.

As part of the core training requirements for foster carers they should attend the Record Keeping course.

End