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C

Care Orders

Care Orders are made in the Family Proceedings Court by a Magistrate or in the County Courts or High Court by a Judge.

If you are on a Care Order this means:

• that you are in the care of the Council.
• Plymouth City Council must look after you until the court decides to stop the Order.
• when a Care Order is made Plymouth City Council get parental responsibility for you. We share this responsibility with your parents.

While Plymouth City Council are looking after you:

• we are responsible for making sure that you have somewhere to live which meets your needs.
• this could be with foster carers or in a children’s home. Sometimes it might be possible for you to live back at home with your parents or with other family members.
• your social worker will talk to you about your views and wishes.

When the Council are making plans and decisions about your future:

• they should always ask you about your wishes and feelings beforehand and take account of your views.
• they should also include your parents as much as possible in the decisions because your parents still have a right to say what they think is best for you.
• however, this does not mean that your parents can always decide what happens. If for example, your parents wishes are different from what the court has said should happen, then we have to do what the court decided. Or, we may need to make a decision by itself if it thinks that what your parents want is not in your best interests.

A Care Order can give us the right to make many decisions about you. However, a Care Order does not give us the right to change your name or religion.

A Care Order can last until you are 18 years old but we will work hard to get you back with your family before then, or if this is not possible, try to find you a new family. If adoption is a possibility, then your social worker must discuss this fully with you and listen to what you want.

If you think it is no longer necessary for there to be a Care Order and you want to return home, you should talk to your social worker about this. If you are not happy with the answer your social worker gives you, and you still feel that you should be allowed to live at home, you can apply to the court to ask for the Care Order to be removed.

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Care plan

When you start to be looked after by Plymouth, your social worker must write a care plan for you.

A care plan includes certain information:

• information written down about you which will help us know how best to care for you.
• what it is hoped will be achieved while you are looked after and what needs to be done to help you.
• the reasons why you are being looked after by us.
• details about important areas of your life which will help us care for you. For example, it will say what your needs are which relate to your culture and religion.
• details about your education and health, and say whether you have any particular school or medical needs.
• if you have a disability, it will also give details about any equipment or facilities you might require to assist you.
• information about which members of your family or which friends you will have contact with while you are looked after and how often you will be able to see them.

When your care plan is being written, your social worker should talk to both you and your parents about what is to be written and get your views.

Changes can be made to you care plan at your reviews, your first one taking places four weeks after you start being looked after. Your second review will be at four months, third review at 10 months and then reviews every six months after that.

If we have to go to court to ask for an Order to look after you, then they will have to write a different plan just to tell the court how they are going to look after you. This a called a court care plan, your views will be needed to complete this plan.

Care plans have to be reviewed regularly and can be changed to meet your needs as time goes on.

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Child Assessment Order

A Child Assessment Order is:

• made by the court when you are living at home and there are worries about whether your parents are caring for you properly.
• only made if your parent(s) have not let us look into the worries.

The Order gives a social worker and/or doctor 7 days to assess whether or not there are concerns about you. If during the assessment, you can show that you know and understand what you are doing, you may be able to refuse to be examined.

When we apply to the court for a Child Assessment Order, the court will listen to the evidence about why we think we need it. The court could decide to make an Emergency Protection Order instead if they felt you were at immediate risk.

When the court makes a Child Assessment Order:

• it can direct that you should live away from home during the 7 days of the Order. This could happen if the court felt that your parent(s) would not bring you to the appointments that would be made to assess you, for example at the hospital.
• it could direct that you should stay in hospital for an assessment instead.
• it could ask us to provide you with accommodation with foster carers or in a Residential home whilst the assessment is done. If this happens then you would be what the law calls “looked after” for that time.

If after the assessment there were worries about you, the social worker may take the assessment report back to the court. The court may decide to make another order so that you remain ‘looked after’ for longer until things are sorted out at home. The Orders that the court could make to keep you ‘looked after’ would be an Emergency Protection Order or an Interim Care Order. If the court decides not to make any Order then you would be able to stay at home.

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Child protection

If we hear about a child or young person being abused or at risk of serious harm by their parent(s), carers or anyone else, then they have a duty to look into this by doing an investigation. We then have to take any necessary action to make sure you are protected from harm and are kept safe.

We want to know about any harm that might be happening to you whether it is caused by adults or other children or young people.

If you are being harmed in any way or are scared of being hurt talk to a member of your family, your social worker, carer or someone else you can trust. If any of these people that are close to you have harmed you, then you must let someone else know so that they can help you. When you do talk to someone about what is happening to you or what might have happened in the past, then you must be listened to.

If you have tried to talk to someone and they did not listen properly, then you must try and talk to someone else. You could phone one of the Child Protection Help lines listed on the Contacts page in this section. People that answer the Helpline phones will listen to you and give you advice.

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Child protection procedures

When a social worker hears about you being hurt or frightened, they will follow Plymouth’s Child Protection procedures. This means:

• they will discuss the problem with other people who know you or your family such as your teacher or doctor.
• they will probably want to talk to you and your family to find out whets been happening.

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Police child protection team

We will also involve the Police Child Protection Team. The police officers who work in this team work only with children who are abused and they usually do not wear uniforms. They will decide with us what needs to be done to make sure you are safe. If the Police do talk to you as part of an investigation, a social worker or some other responsible adult will also be there, they are here to protect you.

Things that we can decide if you are being harmed:

• if you are living at home and a member of your family is hurting you, then we must decide whether you are at risk of serious harm. If you are then we may:

• arrange for you to go and live with friends, relatives or some other carers for a short time until things are sorted out.
• arrange for the person who harmed you to move out of home for a while.
• go to court and ask for an Emergency Protection Order so that they can look after you somewhere safely away from home.

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If you are looked after by us already

If you are already being ‘looked after’ by us and you are being hurt by one of your foster carers or staff in a children’s home, then we must take whatever action is necessary to protect you. We must stop the adult from hurting you and can stop them having contact with you.

This might mean:

• asking the adult to leave the home where you are living.
• moving you to live with other Carers if this is what is best for you.
• this will all be discussed with you so that you know what is happening and your views will be listened to and taken into account.

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If another child or young person is hurting you

If another child or young person is hurting you then we must look in to this and make sure it stops.

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Child protection conferences

When we have done some investigations, they will usually hold a meeting called a Child Protection Conference. This meeting will talk about what would be best for you. You will be asked if you want to come to this meeting if you are over 10 years old. The meeting will include your social worker, the police, your school, someone from health - like a school nurse or your doctor. Your parent(s) and other people who have been looking after you may also attend.

It is very important that you are involved as much as possible and that your wishes and feelings are taken into account in any decision that the meeting has to make. Your social worker will put you in touch with an advocate from the Youth Enquiry Service who will help you think about how you would like to be involved in the meeting. They can attend the meeting with you, speak on your behalf or give the meeting a letter from you to express your wishes and views. If you are worried about someone coming to the meeting you can tell your social worker or advocate or the chair person of the meeting so that they can keep you safe.

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Decisions the Child Protection Conference can make

When everyone’s views have been heard at the meeting, including yours, a decision has to be made about whether your name should be put on the child protection register.

If your name is put on the Child Protection Register:

• a plan will be made to keep you safe.
• there will be regular meetings to look at how things are going for you.
• when you and other people feel that you are safe your name will be taken off the Register.

If you are already being looked after by us:

• the meeting will look at what plans need to be made for you to make sure you are looked after safely in the future.
• your name would not normally be placed on the Child Protection Register unless there are plans for you to return home and the people felt they needed to continue to make sure you were okay.

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Children Act 1989

The Children Act became law on 14 October 1991 and is the main law which is for children and young people who are being looked after by us. There are lots of different parts to this Act which tells us how we should look after children. The Act also tells us that children and young people have rights and what these rights are.

In 2002, the Children Act 1989 was combined to introduce the Adoption and Children Act. You will find out more about your rights throughout this book as you read on.

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Children’s Guardian

If you are involved in a court hearing about your care and safety, you will be given a Children’s Guardian, who will represent your interests in court.

Children’s Guardians:

• are independent social workers (they do not work for Plymouth City Council).
• their job is to talk to you and find out what your wishes and feelings are, and to let the court know.
• they also have the job to find out other information about you and your family that will help the court decide what is best for you.

Your Guardian will make suggestions to the court on what they think should happen to you in the future. This might not be what you want but will be what the Children’s Guardian thinks is best. You can instruct a Solicitor if you do not agree with what other people are deciding for you. Ask your social worker, Guardian or your advocate how to do this.

Your Guardians suggestions may not always agree with the plans made for you by Plymouth City Council but the court will listen to all the suggestions and will make the final decision.

The Guardians work for a company called ‘CAFCASS’, which stands for ‘The Children and Family court Advisory and Support Service’.

CAFCASS aims to:

• safeguard and promote the welfare of children involved in family court proceedings.
• make sure children’s voices are heard.
• help mainly in cases where parents are divorcing or separating and have not reached and agreement about the children’s arrangements, where Children's Services have become involved and children may be removed form their parents, or where children could be adopted.

You can talk to your social worker about any of these issues or services.

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Children’s homes

Facts about children’s homes:

• they are places where a number of children and young people live together and are looked after by care staff that work at the home.
• some homes are managed by local Councils and some by other organisations who look after children and young people.
• every home is different in size, how it is run and how many children and young people live there.
• staff in the home are sometimes called residential social workers, and the number of staff working is different in each home. All staff who look after you in the home are also known as your carers.

Every children’s home should have:

• written details which say how the home is going to care for children and young people. These details are called a Statement. You can ask a member of staff or the Head of the Home to let you see their Statement.
• a Complaints Procedure, which tells you what you can do if you are unhappy about your care in the home. You should be given a copy.
• a contact card, which they should give to you, to use if you have any worries. If you cannot sort out your problem by using the Home’s Complaints Procedure then you should talk to your social worker. If they cannot solve the problem, then you should contact our Complaints Officer.

Usually children and young people visit a home before they go to live there. At this visit your social worker and a residential social worker will sit down with you to sort out what you want, what’s expected of you and agree a plan for your care while you are there.

If you have a disability:

• the home should have facilities to enable you to have easy access around the place. For example, if you have difficulty in walking, you should not have to climb stairs to your bedroom.
• if you are a wheelchair user, then the doors to the toilet and bathroom should be wide enough for you to gain entry and there should be appropriate handrails for you to use. Your social worker should think of all these things when they are looking for somewhere for you to live which meets your needs.

Although a Children’s Home will not be exactly like living with Foster Carers, it should be very similar in offering you a good home life. Residential social workers and other staff should make sure you are well cared for and that you feel safe and secure and feel part of a larger group.

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Clothing

When you are looked after by us, we have a duty to make sure that you have proper clothes to wear.

When you start to be looked after you should be able to bring clothes from home. If you are looked after for a short time you may have enough clothes to wear during this time.

However, if you do need clothes your social worker will ensure these are bought for you.

If you are looked after for a longer period of time we will be responsible for making sure your carers have enough money to buy you the clothing you need. This will include buying you clothes that are appropriate to meet your cultural and religious needs.

When you are looked after:

• your carers must make sure that your clothes are mended and washed and that you have clean things to wear.
• as you get older and into your teens, you will be encouraged to help with sewing and washing your own clothes because this will help you learn how to look after yourself.
• also, your carers should give you the chance to buy your own clothes within budget limits. This does not mean you should buy sandals when winter shoes for school are needed, but it does mean letting you learn to choose for yourself, and letting you learn how to make those choices when you only have a certain amount of money to spend.

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Complaints

If you are unhappy about what is happening to you while you are being looked after, you should talk to someone who you can trust who can try and help you solve the problem. This person can help you talk to your social worker or their manager to try and sort out the problem. If the problem cannot be solved you have the right to complain to our Complaints Officer. A booklet about our Children’s Complaints Procedure should be given to you when you start to be looked after. You should also be given a contact card, which you can use at any time to let us know that you are unhappy or have a problem.

If you are living with other young people who are also looked after and you share the same problem, then you can complain as a group.

If you do ring the Complaints Officer:

• they will help you make your complaint.
• you can ask them to help you talk to your social worker about a problem before you decide whether to make a complaint.
• they can also arrange for you to meet someone called an Advocate to give you further help with your complaint if you need it. If a member of your family or your carer are going to help you with your complaint then you might not need an advocate.

An advocate is a person who does not work for Plymouth City Council but knows about advising and helping people argue for their rights. If you have an advocate they would find out from you what the problem was and what you wanted to see happen to solve it. Your advocate would then make sure that Plymouth City Council staff knew exactly what you wanted to happen to solve the problem and make sure you were treated fairly when your complaint was investigated.

Our Complaints Officer will do their best to make sure any complaint you make is examined properly. However, you still have a general right to get in touch with one of the Councillors who run Plymouth City Council to ask them for their help with any problem you have about the way you are looked after by Plymouth. Usually this would be one of the Councillors who was elected in your local area. You can find out who your Councillors are by ringing the number given in the Contacts page in this section. If you wish to do so, you can also contact the Member of Parliament for your area. They are known as MP's.

As well as being able to contact all the people mentioned above about your complaint, you also have the right to contact someone called the Local Government Ombudsman. This person’s job is to examine any complaints they receive about local Councils not doing their job properly and causing unfairness to people. You will find the Ombudsman’s address in the Contacts page in this section.

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Contact Cards

When you first become looked after by us you should be given a contact card. This card, which does not need a stamp, can be used at any time to let us know that you are unhappy or have a problem. These cards are sent to the Complaints Officer who will decide how best to help you sort out your worries or problems.

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Contact and contact orders

Contact is a word used in the Children Act which refers to keeping touch with people while you are looked after. People you may want to keep in touch with/have contact with could be your parents, grandparents, sisters or brothers, or other relatives or close friends. The contact can happen by visiting, or telephone calls or letters. Sometimes your contact will be supervised by someone else to ensure you are safe and help with any problems that might arise.

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Contact if you are in care

If you are on a Care Order:

• the court may have decided who you should keep in touch with and have contact with.
• sometimes the court will say if someone should not contact you while you are looked after by us. This may happen if the court feels that it is not in your best interest for that person to keep in touch with you. If this happens, your social worker should explain this to you and tell you the reasons the court made this decision.

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In an emergency: (if we think you need to be protected)

We can stop you having contact with a member of your family or other person for up to seven days. If we want to stop contact for longer than this, then they must go to court and ask their permission.

If you are on a Care Order and think you are not having enough contact with your family, or too much contact:

• you should talk to your social worker.
• you should not be forced to see someone you don’t want to.
• your social worker should try and sort this out for you and it should be talked about at your review meeting if necessary.

If you are still unhappy about the contact you are having with your family, you can apply to the court at any time to ask them to make a Contact Order under Section 34 of the Children Act. This Order could be to let you see someone regularly, or to see someone less often, or to stop seeing someone.

The court will want to know that you understand what you are asking for before they will agree to listen to you.

Going to court is difficult and you will need a solicitor to advise you about what you want to do, and help you to apply to the court if necessary.

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Contact if you are accommodated

If you are accommodated:

• this means there has been no Court Order and we cannot stop you having contact and keeping touch with members of your family at reasonable times.
• however, if we had serious concerns about your safety when you were being contacted by either your parents or someone else with parental responsibility for you, especially if you were going to return home to live with that person, we could go to court and ask for a Care Order to be made. If the court decided to make this Order, it would also look at who would be allowed to contact you.

If you are accommodated and are unhappy yourself about having to visit or keep in touch with any individual family member and feel that you do not want them to contact you, or do not want them to contact you so often you should talk to your social worker who will speak to your parents.

If you are still unhappy because the problem has not been solved, you can ask the court for permission to apply for a Contact Order under Section 8 of the Children Act to restrict or stop a particular person from having contact with you.

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More about contact

When you are looked after by us, there might be someone who has not been allowed to keep in touch with you but wants to contact you. They can go to court and ask for an Order to visit telephone or write to you.

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Contraceptives

If you are considering starting a sexual relationship then you should be thinking about how best to protect yourself and your partner against pregnancy and diseases such as venereal disease (known as VD), or a virus like HIV.

There are many different kinds of contraceptives available to protect you from getting pregnant but you must use a condom to protect yourself from VD and HIV.

Permission to use contraceptives:

• if you are over 16 you do not need anyone’s permission to get contraceptives from doctors or clinics. Condoms can also be obtained from chemists or from machines or the Junction (see Contacts page in this section).
• if you are under 16 and you don’t feel able to talk to your social worker or parents you can still go to the doctor or health centre to talk about your situation. They may allow you contraceptives without permission if they think you know and understand what you are doing. They will advise you to tell your parents or social worker.
• If you want advice about contraceptives or just want to talk to someone in private about sexual relationships and contraceptives generally and do not want to go to your doctor or local health centre, then you should contact one of the advice centres listed on our sex and pregnancy information for teenagers page. Many of these can also provide contraceptives.

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Counsellors

Sometimes you might have a problem that you feel is private and you might find it hard to talk about it to your carer or your social worker. Or you might just need to talk to someone privately because you want advice about something personal.

There are people around who can help and they are called counsellors.

Here are a few facts about counsellors:

• counsellors are people, who are there to listen to what you have to say, give advice and support where necessary, and help you make up your own mind on what you want to do.
• counsellors work for different organisations, which give advice and help to people.
• some might work for family planning clinics, and give advice about sexual relationships, contraceptives or pregnancy. Others may work at clinics and are there to help you if you want to talk about issues that are worrying you about your family or childhood experiences, and/or about any abuse you might have suffered.
• counsellors who work for these organisations are different from the councillors who run Plymouth City Council. The word is spelt differently and they do different jobs.

Some schools in Plymouth also have counsellors available to talk to children and young people, and you can ask your teacher if your school has any. Your doctor may also have a counsellor who may be able to talk to you about your worries. If you feel you need to talk to a counsellor you can also ask your social worker if they can arrange a meeting for you.

If you want general advice on anything, there are also Advice Centres where you can go. The Youth Enquiry Service run advice services covering a range of issues such as sexual health, housing for young people which are free and confidential.

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Courts - going to court

Children and young people could find themselves being asked to go to court in three kinds of situations.

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Court hearings about your welfare and care

The first situation is when it concerns matters about a child’s welfare and there are care proceedings, such as Plymouth City Council applying for a Care Order. If you are already on a Care Order then you will already know something about the courts.

If there is ever a court hearing about your care or welfare you will be given a solicitor by the court to represent your views. Your parents would usually have their own solicitor. The court would also ask someone called a Guardian to talk to you and your family and to advise the court as to what would be best for you.

Your solicitor and Guardian would talk to you before the court hearing to find out what you feel and what you want to see happen. They will let the court know your views.

The court might have to meet a few times to hear about your case and listen to all the views from everyone involved before making a decision on what to do that is best for you. If for example, we decided to ask the court for a Care Order so we could look after you, then a date will be fixed for the court to have a first hearing. At the first hearing, the court will begin to listen to the case. It will then decide the dates of future hearings and who should go to court to talk about you and your family, and whether or not you wish to go to court yourself.

If you are old enough to understand what is happening, you might want to be in court most or some of the time, or might decide that you would like to be there for the courts final decision. You should talk to your social worker or guardian about this. You can ask the court, or ask your solicitor to let the court know that you want to be there for all or part of the hearings. The court however may decide that it would be too upsetting for you to be present.

There could be other times that you might go to court about your care and welfare. This could happen if you decide that you wanted to appeal against a Court Order or another order that the court made about you. Or it could happen if you felt that your Care Order should be removed and you wanted to apply to the court to ask them to do this. You would need a solicitor to help you do any of these things.

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Being a witness in court

Another time you might possibly be asked to go to court is if you are a witness in a court case. This might happen if someone who harmed you was arrested and charged by the police. This person would then go on trial in a court. At a trial, witnesses help the people in court to decide if the person broke the law or not. These people who decide are called the Jury.

If this happened, a social worker would have to talk with you very carefully about the whole situation in order for a decision to be made about whether you should or could attend court. If you do have to go to court, your social worker would give you all the support you need and would explain everything that was likely to happen and what you would have to do.

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Going to court if you are in trouble with the law

If you get into trouble with the law, then you may have to go to court unless the police give you a caution instead. A caution is when the police give you a strong warning, which is recorded on their files, instead of bringing the case to court. They might do this if it’s the first time you have been in trouble and the crime isn’t serious. However, if you commit another offence, the police warning is also taken into consideration. If you get into trouble when you are looked after by us, the police will let your social worker know what has happened.

If you do go to court, your case will be heard in a Youth Court. Your social worker or someone from our Youth Offending Team will go to court with you and will explain the courts proceedings to you. Your carer and/or parent may also attend. You would also have a solicitor with you. Your solicitor would find out from you what you wanted her/him to say when they speak on your behalf in the courtroom.

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Criminal injury compensation

Criminal injury compensation is money you can claim if you have been physically or sexually hurt either recently or in the past and it has been reported to the police or us. If it happened at home the police should have been told but the case does not need to have gone to court.

Applications for compensation:

• are usually made on behalf of a child by adults who have parental responsibility.
• if you are accommodated by Plymouth City Council this means your parents or another person who has parental responsibility for you would apply on your behalf.
• if you are on a Care Order, then your social worker will arrange for a solicitor to help you. Your solicitor will then apply for you.

Any money paid to you will be held in safekeeping for you (in a bank or building society trust) by Plymouth City Council. The money is held in trust until you are 18 years old.

You should talk to your social worker if you want more information about criminal injury compensation.

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