7.2 Family Placement Service Notifications to the Registration and Inspections Unit

In August 2021, this chapter was added to the manual.

1. Policy

The Family Placement Service will report all serious incidents to the Registration and Inspection Unit to meet its obligations under the Regulation of Care Act 2013.

This policy and procedure forms part of the Children & Families service’s internal Incident Reporting process, and should therefore be read and considered in conjunction with that policy and process.

2. Procedure

The FPS will ensure that all foster carers and adoptive carers(prior to order) understand what are legally defined notifiable events, and how to (prior to order) inform the Supervising social worker and where appropriate the child’s social worker of any serious event as defined below:

The SSW MUST inform the Team Leader immediately who MUST then within 24 hours, notify the Registration and Inspection Unit.

3. Notifiable Events

The death of any service recipient at the care service and the circumstances of the death; this is a child or young person in placement;
The outbreak of any notifiable disease (within the meaning of Part II of the Public Health Act 1990) at the care service; For notifiable diseases, please refer to gov.im - Notifiable diseases. These include infections such as, Salmonella, Dysentery, Tuberculosis, Campylobacter and rubella;
The serious injury or illness of any service recipient at the care service; this is a clinical diagnosis of a child or young person with a life changing or life limiting injury or illness;
The suffering of serious harm of any service recipient at the care service, This will include, physical, sexual, financial matter, neglect/acts of omission, discriminatory, organisational, psychological/emotional and child sex exploitation;
Any event at the care service affecting the well-being of any service recipient. This would include, medication incident, attempted suicide/self-harm, misuse of drugs/alcohol, behavioural/well-being issue and estate issues (e.g. flooding);
Any unexplained absence of a service recipient from a care service; this means a child or young person whose goes missing;
Any serious incident necessitating calling the police to the care service;
The making of any allegation that a service recipient has committed an offence; if a child or young person has been arrested;
Any theft, burglary, fire or accident at the care service; and
Any conduct of a member of staff at a care service that may be such that they may not be a suitable person to be involved in the care of service recipients. Allegations or concerns are made against the foster carer or prospective adopter.

The supervising social worker must then complete the Registration and Inspection Notification form (see appendix one) within 24 hours of the incident taking place and they would need to notify the child’s social worker and team manager.

It will be the responsibility of the child’s social worker to inform parents and those with parental responsibility of the incident, where appropriate.

The supervising social worker must forward the notification form to the Fostering Team Leader for approval.

The Fostering Team Leader would quality assure the notification form and will forward on to the Registration and Inspection Unit. In addition, following a serious incident, the Fostering Team Leader would inform the Group Manager.

4. Investigation

Any serious incident will be subject to investigation and the service procedures relevant to the circumstances will be used to do this and a plan and timescale agreed with Practice Director.

5. Review

The Fostering Team Leader or Adoption Practice Lead will provide regular updates to R and I and the eventual outcome of inquiry authorised by the Practice Director.

6. Records

All notifiable incidents, inquiry and outcomes will be recorded on the carers file and on the child’s file as relevant and appropriate.

If the incident is a Standard of Care Concern, please follow the standards of care policy.

If the incident occurs out of hours, the Family Placement on call social worker must contact the OOH duty social worker to update them and discuss if the OOH duty manager or OOH duty senior manager need to be informed. A decision will be made regarding who will notify those with parental responsibility and when. All such notifications will occur within 24 hours of the incident.

Appendices

Appendix 1: Registration and Notification Form

Appendix 2: Statutory Notification of Events (follow up) Form

Appendix 3: Process Map

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