Camden’s policy is that where possible, CLA will be placed with a family and friends carer. The LAC family and friends care policy sets out the policy and procedures for CLA social workers when placing a child with a family and friends carer. Please see the Family and friends care section of the hub for further details.

Some children require a long term foster placement as part of their permanence plan. The Long term fostering policy sets out the procedures for identifying, assessing and matching long term carers and the impact on visits and reviews of a placement becoming long-term.

Sometimes the court may order that a child on an ICO is placed at home with their parents or CSSW may decide to return a child on a CO to their parent’s care as part of their permanence plan. The Placement with parents policy sets out the procedures for assessing and agreeing placements with parents and how they should be monitored.

CSSW may decide to place a parent and child in a specialist foster placement together in order to assess parenting capacity; such an arrangement may also be ordered by the court as part of care proceedings. The Parent and child placements policy sets out the procedures for arranging and monitoring these placements.

Some children may exhibit a high level of need that means they need to have their movements restricted in order to keep them safe. For these cases, social workers may consider applying to the court for a secure order so that the young person can be placed in secure accommodation. The Secure accommodation policy sets out the procedures for arranging and monitoring these placements.

Because of the nature of secure accommodation, there is a specialist procedure for reviewing these placements: social workers will need to refer to the following documents:

Secure accommodation review agenda

Secure accommodation review social work report

Secure accommodation review decision sheet

Children should be given the opportunity to stay with their foster carer post 18 under a Staying put arrangement under the Staying put policy. These need to be planned in advance and should be discussed with foster carers as the child approaches 14.