Social workers in the Family, Friends and Fostering service who are carrying out assessments for foster carers, kinship carers and special guardians should follow the procedures in the Checks and searches policy to ensure due diligence in order to safeguard children.

When renewing DBS checks for foster carers, there may be a period when there is no up to date DBS check in place. To cover this, assessing social workers should complete the DBS risk assessment and pass it to the Head of Service for approval. The foster carer should also be asked to sign the DBS declaration that they have not received any criminal convictions and these documents should be uploaded onto the MOSAIC record.