Private Fostering Arrangements - Donna Markham

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Welcome to the P Pod

 00:00:15:00 - 00:00:35:16

Steve Macabee - Host

So welcome back to the people at the Partnership podcast from the Somerset Safeguarding Children Partnership. Now, when we think about children living with someone other than their birth families, we tend to think about foster care or adoption. However, there are many occasions where children may be living with others through different arrangements, which can sometimes be quite confusing for those who don't work in child and social care too.

To understand what the various options are, how they differ, and what support is in place to support those children and their families that look after them. So to hopefully demystify this important area of work, I I'm pleased to be joined in the studio today by Donna Markham, team manager of the kinship team in Within Children Social Care to answer some of the questions.

So Donna, welcome along. Thank you for having me. I'm just one before we sort of get stuck into the subject. Can you just tell us a little bit about yourself and your role and the team you manage? Yeah, I'm a team manager for the kinship team. I'm one of three team managers, and the kinship team is it's quite a large team, actually, and we're split into four areas.

00:01:19:17 - 00:01:50:18

Donna Markham

So we undertake the assessments for special guardians and for connected foster carers, and that means a foster carer who is actually somebody that is already known to the child. So it could be a relative or a teacher in school where there's already that connection and then they go on and become their foster carer. So we do those assessments.

We also supervise connected people, foster carers, once they've been through to panel. We offer special guardianship support, post order and that's the part of the kinship team that I manage the support area. And we also have private fostering sitting in that area which I also manage. Today we're going to be sort of picking up on private fostering arrangements.

00:02:17:16 - 00:02:39:24

Steve Macabee - Host

So I'm just wondering, can you just start off kind of explaining to us about what is a private fostering arrangement and how does the kind of safeguarding of private foster children differ from children in other types of care? 

00:02:40:01 - 00:03:13:03

Donna Markham

Yeah, so private fostering is really confusing because it's not fostering, right? So the very name of it is really misleading.

Private fostering is ultimately a private arrangement that's been made by the parents of a child and another person. And it's where the other person is not their immediate family member. So if it's if a child is staying with their grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, they don't need to let anybody know about that, that that's sort of a private family arrangement that doesn't need to be shared.

But as soon as we go outside of that immediate family, if we go to great grandparents, great aunties and uncles, cousins next door neighbours, you know, things like that, then then it's private. Fostering a Lasater is a private arrangement that is made between those two people that the child is going to stay there. So it's different from other types of a range happens in children's social care because it does not have children's social care involved in its making.

It's completely separate to us. So we're advised generally of it after it's happened, but we're not instrumental in making that the place where the child is living. We're not suggesting that that is where the child should live. It's completely independent to us. It's not a court order. It's a private family arrangement. Right. Which so it's a very, very informal situation.

Like so it hasn't gone through any court processes and presumably hasn't gone through on any form of assessment to actually make sure that that that place is safe for that child to be. No. Say once the child has been there for 28 days, or if we know that the carers know that the child will be there for more than 28 days, there actually is a legal duty for the parent and the camera to notify children's social care that is happened because actually we do have a duty to do an assessment of it to make sure it's safe. So as soon as we receive a notification, we would go and visit the child within five days and we would complete a private fostering assessment within 35 days. And within that, we would seek to undertake the DPS. Is there not always back in 35 days, but we certainly would have requested that we would have met the family members that are living in the new home.

We would have looked at the home to make sure that it's appropriate. We would be talking to the carers about checking their understanding of how they can meet that child's needs in terms of their health and wellbeing and safeguarding. And we would be talking to the parents and making sure that that the parents have agreed this arrangement, you know, and they are happy with that. So we would do all of that in our private fostering assessment.

00:05:52:21 - 00:06:13:05

Steve Macabee - Host

Right. It's like you say, you know, we just need to make sure those places are safe. And I'm sure many, many are. We just need to know when exactly. And I think, yes, most children are safe, but we have to remember that for some children, they're not.

00:06:13:07 - 00:06:55:12

Donna Markham

And we remember Victoria Climbie when we're thinking about that, who was in a private fostering arrangement. And actually it was Victoria's death in 2000 that led to the Lord Laming review and the subsequent report. That had quite an impact on some of the requirements in the legislation around private fostering and really making it really important that we look and identify those arrangements and say we work hard with all our partners in education as well to try and help identify where those private arrangements have been made.

But we also have quite we have quite a focus on sharing private fostering information. So we do seven CPD sessions on private fostering that we do internally for Somerset, and we also have a workshop on the ACP page as well that people can access. So why the professionals can access that. So that that is part of what came from the Lord LAMING review is our focus on promoting and identifying private fostering because it is often quoted, I think with Victoria Climbie, that she was in with her aunt or lived with a great aunt. But, but actually you're absolutely right. She wasn't a blood relative at all. She wasn't. And she was reported as being with a great aunt and if she had have been her great on it still would have been private fostering. But yes, no, she wasn't actually a relative.

00:07:51:08 - 00:08:29:20

Steve Macabee - Host

So what are some of the main reasons why children might be privately fostered? 

00:08:29:22 - 00:09:00:19

Donna Markham

Well, it can happen for lots of reasons. And I'd say probably the main reason is where the children and parents have fallen out and the child has left home and gone to stay with a family friend or family member or the parents have asked them to look after them because things are difficult at home. So that's probably the main reason it can happen for other reasons. Parents, you know, who are going through separation, maybe that arguing a lot might identify that they want the child to be somewhere else for a period of time. We may have adults who are working in the UK from abroad and identify somewhere else for their children to stay while they're here.

We have children who are sent here from abroad. They may be here for education and where we've had some children in boarding schools and if they can't remain in the boarding school, which has happened for various reasons, I mean COVID being a prime example, children couldn't get back home. Our schools were closing. So say a boarding children were going to host families that we then had to assess any in Somerset that were for private fostering.

So it can happen. Yeah, lots and lots of reasons. Children and we've had two family parents that went abroad for medical treatment and the child went into private fostering for three or four months while the parents were abroad. So lots of different reasons that it can happen. 

Steve Macabee - Host

I was I was just thinking when you were talking earlier about residential schools and COVID and having to assess potentially quite a large number of private managements and how many how many people do you have in the team that would carry out those assessments?

00:10:12:19 - 00:10:38:18

Donna Markham

Generally, we have one. We have Sally Lark, who is the private fostering social worker for Somerset at this time. And unless she's on leave, she will undertake all of them because we have to see a child within five days if she's on leave, then we have a couple of other people in the kinship team that have done them before that that we would ask to go and do them.

But generally Sally has two more. So it sounds like Sally had quite a busy time and then at the start of the COVID period, yes. So we thought it was going to be really busy and it was a bit of panic stations, but ultimately a lot of these children that were in Somerset went over the border into other counties, and private fostering is reported to the local authority in which the private fostering home is.

So our numbers did go up, but not to a not to unmanageable levels. I think that was probably a relief for Sally at that point in time. Yes, it was. 

Steve Macabee - Host

Then how many how many sort of children are we talking about on a national basis? How many how many children do we think are in private foster arrangements and then sort of locally in Somerset?

00:11:31:12 - 00:12:13:23

Donna Markham

Well, the estimated number of children in private fostering arrangements is 10,000 in England. So I think when we consider the geographical area of Somerset, I in England, that is quite a large number where I think we probably would be expecting around about 2000 children. Actually our numbers throughout a year average low twenties, right. Wow. And I think at this moment in time we've got about six or seven.

This isn’t a Somerset problem. It's a national problem and recognized that we know what the estimates are and no local authority actually reports anywhere near the figures that we expect. And I think that part of that is the difficulty with people understanding that actually they have a legal duty to report it because that legal duty is in the Children Act, but your average parent or adult wouldn't read the Children Act or know that they had a legal requirement in there.

So it's and it's really hard when we're promoting private fostering because the legal title is private fostering. And that's, as I said at the beginning, that's really misleading. So people here fostering and think that's not me and, and kind of switch off from it a bit. So it's a real challenge actually in trying to get that message through to the families that are actually looking after these children to let them know that they need to report it and auto also to let schools know that when they become aware of that change, that they also have a legal duty to report it.

00:13:43:08 - 00:14:18:19

Steve Macabee - Host

So, yeah, I picked up, you said, estimated 10,000 nationally. And so really what we're saying is that we are estimating that's a figure, but in reality we don't really know because actually they're not being reported into the local authority for assessments. 

Donna Markham

Exactly. And I would say I have done some direct work with schools just in July, and they were kind of laughing and saying, well, we would have that number of privately fostered children that you've told us If you have at the moment, we would have that just from our school.

So that's one secondary school in Somerset. So there are definitely a lot of privately fostered children that we're not aware of. Like I, I think often schools are in quite unique position that they may have known the child for many years. They weren't in the family. They never may know the sort of the community dynamics that are going on to be able to sort of pick up on these things exactly.

00:14:44:22 - 00:15:41:16

Steve Macabee - Host

And can you discuss any sort of any sort of challenges or issues that private foster carers might face and how some of those can be addressed? 

Donna Markham

Well, like I guess private fostering arrangements work really, really well when there is a positive relationship with the birth parents and good communication, it can become a challenge when that communication ceases, when sometimes it does, or because it's a private arrangement that the birth family would normally pay some money to the private carers where we'd say at least they should be paying child benefit money over to the to the carers when financial elements change or don't come into being.

The private family will sometimes seek for the local authority to be paying them as a foster carer. And that is something that we don't do and we can't do because if we do that we would be say in there actually a foster carer, a mainstream foster carer and they would have to undergo all of the things that mainstream foster carers do and also that child isn't in care.

So you can't have a child that's not in care with a foster carer say we don't pay any financial element at all, but we would try to mediate between parents and make a suggestion of what we might think is reasonable. But yeah, that, that tends to be a bit of a sticking area for some carers when they're, they're struggling financially and if a birth parents aren't given them enough money to actually care for the child, they just want to have situations where potentially the parents, the biological parents don't want that arrangement to be taking place.

00:16:49:23 - 00:17:09:08

Steve Macabee - Host

But maybe we've got an older teenager who says that's our falling out with mum and dad. I don't live with them any more. I'm going to go and live with my boyfriend will girlfriend's parents. So the child or the young person is going to making that choice against the kind of parent's wishes? And where does that sort of stand in terms of kind of parental sort of responsibility?

00:17:09:08 - 00:17:42:16

Donna Markham

And for that, that's a really interesting question. And I guess we have some different answers as well, depending on the age of the child. So what fundamentally has to be there for it to be a true private arrangement is that it's a private arrangement between the parents and the child. And when we're talking about a child, we are talking a child who is under the age of 16 unless they have a disability, in which case it's under the age of 18.

So under the age of 16. And yes, as he said, you can very often have these fallouts with teenagers who were 14, 15. And that's really difficult. And the parents are saying, I don't agree with that and I want them to come home. What we would be saying actually is what are the parents doing to get the chance to come home?

What are they? Are they being proactive or are they just saying I want them to come home but not doing anything? And if they're not doing anything, then we would look at the child's age and we might say, you know, this child is going to be 16 in six months time. They can consent for themselves. You know, the parent's not actually doing anything to get them home.

So we will work with this as a private fostering arrangement. We had we had a really interesting case a couple of years back actually with a much younger child where whether their birth parent was very, very cross in saying, I don't agree to this private fostering arrangement and it kinds of throws things up in the air a little bit as to what do we do.

But ultimately, if a parent's not actually removing that child and they're not being proactive in doing anything to get the child back in their care, it is a private arrangement. They just don't want our involvement. Actually, we have a legal duty to check that. So when this happened a few years ago, we had to take a bit of legal advice on it as to what do we do because nobody's checking.

That is okay. But the parents really, really cross and doesn't want us to go there. And the legal advice was, well, if they don't want the child to be there, they have to go and pick the child up. And if they're not going to, you have to check the houses. Okay. So yeah, that there are it is not black and white always.

00:20:00:12 - 00:20:16:06

Steve Macabee - Host

There are grey areas. That's what I was thinking as you were talking. And I suppose some of those some of that sort of grey area gets wider when we're looking at sort of age and capacity of the child, maybe. No, we're talking about a four year old, he says. Right. That's how I want to go, letting my mum and dad and they would there would be an expectation that parent would be very proactive going into that house, potentially taking that child out, contact the police, whereas perhaps when we're talking about a 15 year old solicitor. Yes. It's a wide grey area, isn't it? 

Donna Markham

Yeah, it's a wide area. And I think in the example I was talking about, I mean, the child was around about the age of six or seven, so very young child, you know, so yeah, that that's really difficult then.

Is that because you want the parent to collect the chop that the parent had made a private arrangement and the reason was valid, but just didn't want children's social care having a look really. And I think a lot of that comes down to fair around children social care and around having social workers involvement. And certainly I think that's the feedback that that we have had after we've done assessments and when we've work worked with families for a long time, that they kind of say, Oh, I'd never worry about having a social worker come again because there's a lot of fear when you say you're a social worker and you find out from children's social care you want to go there. There was a lot of stuff that comes with that for people. 

Steve Macabee - Host

Yeah, I think quite often there's a perception that social workers focus their day on sort of kicking in front doors and moving children, get them into foster care. I have heard fairly frequently to the perception that social workers get a bonus every time a child goes into foster care, which I know nothing could be further from the truth, but I'd say there is quite a still quite strongly held public belief that that's the main focus.

00:22:01:20 - 00:22:37:02

Donna Markham

Yeah, and, and, you know, I think that television doesn't always help. I certainly have stopped watching soaps because. Because and I guess that's the same for any professional when you see a professional represented, you know on the television and it's not right. But actually we have really good feedback from families, both parents and carers and children that work with us in private, fostering really, really good feedback and, you know, appreciate our involvement.

00:22:37:04 - 00:23:14:15

Steve Macabee - Host

So yeah, if anyone is particularly worried about that, I would hope to put their mind to ease that, that we're offering a service just to make sure that the, the child has, has somebody that visited them that can hear their voice and understand them and, and we can signpost carers to lots of information that can be helpful for them and I think alongside that often the word assessment can, can give people a lot of fear and a lot of worry about, you know, I'm being assessed, but so could you talk about what the assessment process actually kind of entails?

00:23:14:18 - 00:23:49:09

Donna Markham

Yes, So we have a standard assessment form. It's a it's a quite a quick assessment in comparison to other assessments that we might do for children. But it's looking at sort of the family make up and how the family can meet the needs of the child, so how they can meet their medical needs, health needs, their educational needs, their safeguarding, promoting time with their family, all of those kind of things.

We will look at the space the child has in the house, that they have privacy, that that the child or the young person feels comfortable and confident to go to the carer about private matters. If they need help, if they need items purchased for them, or if they need to go and see a doctor, that they feel that they can speak to the caregiver about that.

So we make sure that those things are in place and it's really important that we do our safeguarding checks, say we do the DPS, we will look around the house and we will say, you know, it might not be perfect. The child might be sharing a bedroom with another child, which in fostering we would say, well, that's not really ideal, but in this case we would say that that's okay.

But where do they get their privacy? You know, you know, is there a lock on the toilet door and things like that in rare cases, if we felt that that a home was not appropriate, we could say that the current those carers could not do any kind of fostering at all, private or otherwise, in that home. We can also say that the family is the adults in the family are not appropriate as carers and we could prevent them or we could prevent one person from caring.

And that could be, it could be because information comes to us potentially through a DPS or another professional that makes us concerned that the camera may not be appropriate to be around young people, or it could be as part of the assessment that we might think they don't demonstrate, they don't demonstrate an awareness of how they can meet, for example, how they can meet the child's cultural needs.

And we might suggest some training for them. And if they don't, they want to do that, then, you know, we might say, well, you need you have wider needs. You're not you're not supporting the child in their culture or you're not supporting the child to maintain a good relationship with the birth parents. And actually, you know, you're maybe making things a bit difficult and it might not be appropriate for reasons like this, for all kinds of reasons really, that we could potentially prevent.

But it's very, very rare. I can only think of one. And I've been managing private fostering for about three or four years. So yeah, I can only think of one. 

Steve Macabee - Host

Yeah, let's get onto that. That is going to be my question really is kind of how often is that. 

Donna Markham

Yeah. So I mean I think we become aware of things aren't perfect and aren't great, but we will work with the family and we will say this isn't great.

So let's have a think about how we can make things better and we will work with them. We will offer training or, you know, we will have 1 to 1 talk with them. We will always speak to the young person alone and make sure that they're feeling happy. We do. You know, we've had young people come into Somerset from other private fostering or placements that have been ended by other local authorities as not being appropriate.

So, you know, we need to really keep a check on this and make sure that the children are happy, they are having their needs met, they're being fed appropriately, that they're accessing education as they should be and accessing anything, any clubs and things that they want to be access in, in line with the other children in that family that that that kind of access in the same kind of things.

00:27:48:06 - 00:28:14:17

Steve Macabee - Host

So, yeah, I was I was just thinking in that circumstance. I mean, what, what would happen if you assessed a family and you said actually this really is not appropriate for this child to be here. What happens with that? Well, our first step would be to speak to the birth parents and say that our assessment is that it is not appropriate and we would ask them to identify somewhere else for that child to live if they can't return home.

00:28:14:19 - 00:28:53:20

Donna Markham

So, yeah, normally the birth parent at that point will take responsibility for it. The child will either be collected and go home or they will identify a another family or friend that will take over the care. So that's what would normally happen, I think if I recall the one that we had came into Somerset quite a few years ago, that the child was studying from abroad and we hadn't been able to contact the birth parents, but there was an intermediary agency like a host family agency involved.

And actually we did have to report that to the LADO, to the local authority designated officer that they hadn't shared information on a DBS. So we take that very, very seriously. We're very glad that we don't have to do that often. But if it does arise, we will make sure that the child is in a safe place to live.

And we will report if we think that that is necessary. And we also will send a legal letter to prevent them from fostering or that home from fostering. Again, if we think that that is necessary. And of course they have rights to appeal that, you know, but we would take it seriously. We would we would take those measures if we need to.

00:29:44:05 - 00:30:18:00

Steve Macabee - Host

So we've got the assessment process. So just sort of tracking through it, I guess sort of looking at, first of all, the notification. So you notified that there's a private foster arrangement taking place. Then we took that the assessment side of things. Is that it then, or is that new place? 

Donna Markham

No, it's not that. And what I would say before I forget is when somebody notifies, we do have notification forms that are currently on the fostering in Somerset Web page that you can pull off, but they are the easiest notification form in the world.

So if there is a professional listening thinking, oh, another form to fill in, it's just a few names and addresses really, and that is it. And you just email that over to us. So once we do the assessment, the first year that a child is in a private fostering assessment, we have a duty to visit them every six weeks and every six weeks we complete a new form.

It's called a Regulation eight form, but it is effectively a new assessment. It's ever so slightly bigger than the original assessment. So we continually check that it remains appropriate for the child. Now, that sounds it sounds like a really awful process, I suppose, if you're a carer, but what that looks like for them is that every six weeks social worker is going to come to your home, they're going to talk to the child alone, and then they can have a sit and a chat with you.

And it really is a conversation about what's going well, what are the challenges. Anything that's come up and it's written up into the assessment. So it's not like they're continually and forever feel that they're in assessment because for them, it looks like, you know, a visit six weekly where we're having a conversation with them and just checking in on how things are after the first year.

If the child is still there, we can move that to 12 weekly. If everything's going fine, then then they would be 12 weekly visits are six weekly and are 12 weekly visits. They're minimums. So if things were not going so well, if they were feeling a bit tricky, we would offer to go more often. If if there was a particular incident, we might go out and see the child.

So yeah, we would be, you know, quite, quite involved. But it's not a difficult relationship with private fostering social workers and the carers that normally welcome the opportunity to sit down and have a chat and be able to talk about things, how things are going and as part of that ongoing assessment process, if as part of that, you identify actually, yeah, this family could require some extra support or the family are asking for some extra support.

Steve Macabee - Host

What might that look like?

00:32:47:20 - 00:33:11:13

Donna Markham

Well, it could be that that the child is with a young person is behaving in a particular way than they date. They haven't experienced that with their own children. So let let's take, for example, maybe that child is experiencing some mental health issues or has maybe been self-harming and they've not experienced that before. Then we would talk to them about it.

We would give them some guidelines for managing it and we would offer them to undertake some training. So the offer of training was increased to include private foster carers. Back when I started managing the team back three or four years ago. So generally they wouldn't go on and have a look by as part of conversations we might say, Oh well this, this training might be helpful for you.

And then if they want to, they can just book on to it in the same way we can get them a log on and they can just go and become true to what they want to say. So that generally I'd say that that the support is via asks talking to them and giving them advice and guidance and signposting and the training.

Sometimes we do have to offer some mediation, but sometimes that that might be with the carer and the birth parent, but sometimes that's with the young person and the birth parent, because as much as we're saying that the home is appropriate and they can meet the child's needs, it's not the child's home, it's not where their parents are.

And so our goal is to have the child return back home wherever possible and the arrangement said we will support the child. We will talk to the young person about the time that they've spent with birth parents and what it was like, what they need to feel more secure about it and spend more time at home. So we're always looking at those equally.

If it's really clear that that young person is not going to go back home and they're really safe and settled in the provider arrangement, we will talk to the carers about whether they might want to consider a child arrangement order or a special guardianship order to replace the private fostering arrangement to give them some parental responsibility. So that they can make some decisions.

Again, we don't do that particularly often, but it's where it's really, really clear and we've done lots of work and we know that our return home is not likely to happen, that actually then we need to think about how can we secure a more permanent option for the young person to make them feel that this this is their permanent home and that they're wanted here and they're going to be cared for and not necessarily have a social worker involved in their life anymore because, you know, it's not something that young people want to have.

They want to have to talk to a social worker every month. So we will offer those options. And if there are options that the camera and the young person are happy with, and we talk to birth parents as well, and if they're everyone's happy, we would support them in achieving a higher order. 

Steve Macabee - Host

And in terms of financially, I'm guessing because it's not a formal arrangement, there's no sort of financial support directly?

But if a family is sort of saying, actually, you know, we're looking out for our friend's child, we're struggling financially, we don't think we can sustain this. Is there any advice or guidance that can be provided around that? 

Donna Markham

We're really we would point to the Citizens Advice Bureau. We would also be checking that they are claiming benefits correctly and that they are claiming things like the universal credit for that child as well, and that they're receiving child benefit if the parents are handing over the equivalent amount of money of a child benefit as a minimum that they should be claiming for in their own right.

So yeah, we can certainly sign posts to make sure that they've got all of those things in place as they should have. We can try to mediate with parents around finances if necessary, if they've had difficulty doing it themselves. 

Steve Macabee - Host

I just want if anybody wants to find out more information about private fostering in Somerset, how can they how can they do this?

00:37:41:05 - 00:38:07:11

Donna Markham

Okay, so there is an area on the fostering in Somerset web page and if they go onto there and then in types of fostering, they will find private fostering. Again, even though it's not really fostering, that's where it sits. Very confusing that private fostering there will be a dropdown and it will give them a bit of information about private fostering.

They can also email private fostering at Somerset dot gov dot UK if they want to talk to us about anything in particular. If somebody thinks that they might have a private family, they're not quite sure and they want to talk it through. You can either email us or you can contact us on kinship duty number and we will talk it through and see if we think it's private fostering.

00:38:36:03 - 00:38:56:14

Steve Macabee - Host

Perfect Thanks, Donna. And what I'll do, I'll pop in the in the description today's podcast, those links and that number for anybody wanting those lovely brilliant thank you don't it. Well I'm just thinking just at the end there you sort of talked about special guardianships, orders, child arrangement orders. That's pretty a whole kettle of fish to get into.

So I'm just wondering, would you be happy to come back and talk to us another time about those? 

Donna Markham

Yes, absolutely. 

Steve Macabee - Host

That would be brilliant. Excellent. Well, thank you so much for your time today, Donna. And I believe as well. Is this is it private fostering week this week? 

Donna Markham

Yes. So we will be prominent on social media.

We will have stores outside a few shopping centres that you can come and talk to us and have a chat and find out a bit more about it. Brilliant. Get out there and tell people about it. Like say, raise, raise awareness, movement and else. That idea about what it is it about that that when I said that that duty to notify just to make sure this place is safe and as you mentioned earlier we're also running out the workshops through the FCP for schools and other agencies.

Yeah there we have I think we're for a year through there. But I would say if, if a school wants to have a larger presentation to them, you know we've, we've a number of year heads etc. we, we could do things directly but not we'd need it for, to be for, you know, a number of people. But yeah we, we are very keen on promoting it the best that we can into schools pretty well.

00:40:19:22 - 00:40:40:09

Steve Macabee - Host

Hopefully that this helps with that. So Donna, thank you so much for your time today And yeah, really look forward to you coming back to us and again and talking to us about special guardianships and other forms of care arrangements. Thank you. Lovely. Thanks, Donna. Take care. 

Donna Markham

Okay. Bye bye.

00:40:40:11 - 00:41:04:21

Steve Macabee - Host

As always, if you'd like to find out more details on the topics discussed in today's episode, go to the CCP website at Somerset Safeguarding Children dot org dot UK or by following any of the links in the description. If you have any questions or comments arising from today's episode or would like to be involved in future episodes, we'd love for you to get in touch with us at the Peapod at Somerset Dot Gov dot UK.

00:41:04:23 - 00:41:24:21

Donna Markham

My thanks again to my guest today, Donna Markham, team leader in the kinship team in Somerset Children's Social Care. For talking to us about private fostering arrangements. I'm pleased to say that Donna will be joining us again for another episode. Talk about some of the other areas of work our team undertakes and specifically about special guardianship orders. So if today's episode has left you wanting to find out more.

Donna will be back with us again shortly. My thanks as well, of course, to you for listening. My name is Steve Maccabee and I'm the training manager for the Somerset Safeguarding Children Partnership. And I look forward you joining us again next time at the Peapod that's worked together to help keep children safe.