Position at the outset

This study relates to a young woman with whom I worked to help her move to a permanent placement in long-term foster care. In order to meet her needs it was necessary to undertake direct work, as well as develop good multiagency communication and future planning for permanency. The agency context was a statutory social services department within a London borough.

I shall initially give brief background history before describing the process and work undertaken, which is illustrated by the theoretical or research basis where appropriate. Later I will describe the outcomes of this work, before offering an evaluation and analysis of my intervention. The reader may assume that all procedures under the Department of Health ‘Looked After Children’ initiative adopted by the borough have been complied with.

Background

Throughout this study the young woman concerned shall be known as ‘Carol’. At the onset of my involvement for the purposes of this work she was 13 years old. Carol was of white British origin and had lived in the borough most of her life. She had no disability although she was statemented for special educational needs, albeit on behavioural grounds. I had been Carol's social worker for approximately seven months, throughout which time she had correspondingly been placed in shortterm foster care through a voluntary organisation.

Prior to this, Carol had been looked after under Section 20 of the Children Act (1989) for eight months, following an argument with her mother and a subsequent physical fight. Her mother called the emergency duty team and Carol was placed in emergency foster care late at night. Carol remained looked after and went through a succession of ten placements. Moves on had generally been through short-term placements with the expectation that she would return home, or because the foster carers were unable to cope with her behaviour, which was constantly challenging and verbally abusive. At the onset of this study Carol was in need of a long-term placement.

Carol's family are depicted in the genogram in Figure 1. Both her mother and father had histories of being placed in local authority care, as did all of her siblings. Carol's eldest brother and sister had both been adopted at an early age, due to physical abuse. A care order had been sought unsuccessfully on Robert four years previously, due to suspected sexual abuse by the mother.