Foster Carer Portal - EqIA

Aims of the strategy

Creating the Foster Carers’ (FCs) portal online will speed up the time it takes to receive information, improve the quality of the information, reduce administration time, reduce costs eg travel for family social workers to collect paper forms, postage and more importantly improve the outcomes we can achieve from the data for example identifying trends and improving our response. 

This change will mainly affect our foster carers. Foster carers are a job defined in law, whilst not strictly employees they do work for us. We consider them to be self-employed. Employees are also affected due to changes within our case management and recording system (MOSAIC). If foster carers needed reasonable adjustments to carry out their role, this would be provided and could include specialised information and communications technology (ICT) equipment. 

The portal will allow the foster carers to submit their weekly diary sheets, significant incident reports and body maps (these accompany a significant incident report – to indicate injuries on a diagram of a body) online. Training materials are also available on the portal in different formats. In developing the portal, testing took place with: 

• disabled employees 
• project team 
• foster carers 
• digital champions
• web accessibility expert 

Following feedback from all of the above, changes were made to improve accessibility and usability. 

Dorset Council's Fostering Service sits within the Children's Services Directorate. The outcomes for children and young people, which underpins every aspect of the work within Children’s Services, are for them to: 

• be safe wherever they are and know what it is to be healthy and adopt lifestyles that promote it 
• enjoy positive relationships and have a good awareness of their personal strengths and qualities, knowing that their voice is heard and listened to on matters that affect them 
• be confident and successful learners who can also achieve personal success as they grow into adulthood 

Dorset Council's Fostering Service plays a key role in the Children's Services Directorate, in relation to: 

• children and young people in care
• children in need of safe alternative family placements with foster carers or connected persons, and 
• children in need of permanence such as long-term fostering or special guardianship

There are two main types of foster carers – mainstream and connected persons.

Mainstream foster carers

Mainstream foster carers are members of the public who are recruited, assessed and approved to care for children not known to them who are, or who become looked after. Mainstream foster carers will be approved for a specific number of children with an age range of 0-18 or 5-18, with a preferred age group.

Mainstream foster carers can foster if over 21, are healthy and have a spare bedroom. 

Connected persons carers

Connected persons carers are people already known to the child, they may be family members, family friends or teachers, or youth workers for example. They are assessed and approved to care for that specific child and are only approved foster carers while that child remains living with them or until the child turns 18. Most connected persons foster carers are family members. They need to be 18 or over and may be from any background and circumstance.  

There is an expectation that all foster carers will be online and receive letters, newsletters and general information via email. 

A weekly allowance is paid to foster carers as a contribution towards household costs including broadband. 

Find out more information about different types of fostering and fostering in Dorset.

A very similar system to this portal was developed and has been in use by our community resource workers for a couple of years and has worked very well.  

Context to the proposal

Foster carers are required to provide various documentation regarding the children in their care. These range from weekly diary sheets to records of medication given, and any significant issues which have occurred within the household. Historically this has been a paper-based process, now we are moving this online and streamlining the process.

As part of the project we are also seeking to improve the digital skills of the foster carers especially, those with limited digital skills, so that

• they can undertake the work required of a foster carer
• they are upskilled to interact digitally with Dorset Council 
• they are generally able to make better use of the internet eg to be able to help children with electronic homework, do online shopping, engage in social networks and help keep their children safe online.

Intelligence and communication

Data, information, evidence and research used and how it has influenced the decision-making process

 The following sources of data and information have been used: 

• Dorset Insight - data and statistics about Dorset and its communities 
• The Children Act 1989 
• The Adoption and Children Act 2011 
• Digital Inclusion in Dorset produced by Citizens On-Line in April 2019 – provides a comprehensive overview of digital inclusion issues within Dorset and identifies opportunities to improve them
• ONS - Exploring the Digital Divide 
• MOSAIC Dorset Children’s Services case management system for foster carer information 
• the current number of foster carers and their demographics 

Data we already have about service users, or those the proposal will have an impact on

Population of Dorset

Below is a breakdown of the population of Dorset (from where service users will primarily be drawn) with reference to the protected characteristics (and other factors) that there is currently data on. This data was taken from Dorset Insight's area profile for Dorset Council

Source: 2018 Mid-Year Estimates, Office for National Statistics

Dorset has a much greater proportion (29%) of the population aged 65 and over, higher than England and Wales (18%). Over the period 2008 - 2018, the number aged 65+ grew by 22,500 (up by 26%). However, the working age population dropped by 9,200 in Dorset and the number of children fell by 900.  

The number of children in Dorset is 59,9001. The number of 0-4-year olds is expected to decrease by about 600, but the number of 5-15-year olds will decrease by almost 100 between 2018 and 2028.

Dorset Council produces population projections which look forward 25 years and are revised on an annual basis.

Source: Census 2011, Office for National Statistics

One in five of Dorset’s population consider that they have a long-term health problem or disability. In the former council area of Weymouth and Portland this accounts for 22% of residents, compared to former North Dorset council area with 18%.  

Source: Census 2011, Office for National Statistics

Dorset has much lower levels (4.4%) of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) residents than the country as a whole (19.5%). The highest proportion of Dorset's BAME population are classified as 'White Other' who make up approximately 41% of Dorset's BAME population. This classification includes people who identify as white but who do not have UK national identity. 

Dorset has a slightly higher female population with 105 females for every 100 males in Dorset.

Dorset Council currently has 207 foster carers: 

• 147 mainstream foster carers 
• 60 connected person foster carers 

 The breakdown in ages for the 207 foster carers is as follows: 

• 20-29 = 7 
• 30-39 = 25 
• 40-49 = 47 
• 50-59 = 75 
• 60-69 = 43 
• 70-79 = 10 

Roughly consistent with the data above for the population of Dorset, a significant number of our foster carers (approximately 25%) are aged over 60. 

The breakdown in race and ethnicity for the 207 foster carers is as follows: 

• 6 Not Recorded 
• 4 White Other 
• 2 Asian/British Asian 
• 195 White British 

We have no Foster carers for whom English isn’t their first language. 

Other councils are looking to implement online systems for foster carers and two have already approached Dorset, Essex and Cornwall, to look at our solution for this. We are at the forefront of these developments relating to MOSAIC. 

Digital Users 

Technological change means that digital skills are increasingly important for connecting with others, accessing information and services and meeting the changing demands of the workplace and economy. This is no different for foster carers who are increasingly accessing services and resources digitally eg in relation to their general domestic lives and to access training, development and information in their role of a foster carer. 

Engagement or consultation that has taken place as part of this EqIA

Prior to launching the pilot the fostering social workers spoke to all our foster carers individually to record their level of confidence in their digital skills. 

We ran two workshops with a dozen foster carers to show them the forms, process and seek feedback. This feedback was used to refine and improve the forms. 

We asked colleagues from outside the project, who have disabilities, to review the form and provide feedback which we used to refine the form  

The pilot 

We then trialled the forms with a small group of foster carers for a period of three weeks. At the end of this period we gathered feedback (via email and a workshop) to identify improvements. 

We also asked our community digital champions/advisors to test the form and provide feedback along with web accessibility expert. Digital champions are a group of volunteers, mostly made up of retired IT professionals, who usually hold sessions in libraries and community centres (see Dorset Digital Champions for more information).

As part of the pilot the digital champions also supported some foster carers who identified as needing help.  

How will the outcome of consultation be fed back to those who you consulted with? 

• via feedback sessions with the foster carers in the pilot (MS Teams) 
• changes will be made to the forms in the future if required 
• via the foster carers newsletter in which we will include articles
• via the fostering social workers during their weekly catch-ups with foster carers
• via foster carer support groups run by fostering social workers

Assessment

Impacts of the strategy 

nKey to impacts

Action Plan  

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