Issue details - Family First Policy

BHCC permanence policy informs social work practice and decision making with regard to children subject to care proceedings and in care. There are several key drivers requiring a review of existing policy: Organisational restructuring; the transformation of social work agenda; the government’s Adoption Action Plan; the Family Justice Review; and local ‘Family First’ priorities. The commitment to maintain children in their family of origin or in their wider network of family and friends underpins all permanence planning for children in Brighton and Hove. The high numbers of looked after children in Brighton and Hove necessitates a robust permanence policy that achieves emotional, physical and legal permanence for children in a way that either avoids them becoming looked after or robustly moves them on from the looked after system via special guardianship / residence order to extended family members, placement with unrelated foster carers who go on to obtain special guardianship, or placement for adoption. The revised permanence policy sets out the context and process for this work.’