Tier 1 advice and support

General SGO advice and support

This is in respect of any issues impacting upon the SGO, eg should you be wanting to seek parenting support or advice about accessing early help support. In most cases information and advice can be provided, or the special guardian will be signposted to the appropriate agency/service.

Family time (contact)

We're unable to facilitate supervision of family time post-order. Family time will be risk assessed as part of the SGO report, and recommendations made in respect of ongoing family time arrangements. This should include a contingency plan around how family time will continue should the arrangements in place breakdown. The risks and arrangements for family time must be fully detailed in the SGO support plan. If a court order is felt to be required a child arrangements order should be sought alongside the SGO to set this out. 

Required mediation, support and training should take place prior to the order being granted. It may be the case that family time is required to take place in a contact centre. If this is the case Special Guardianship Support can signpost to local contact centres. It's important that family time is thoroughly assessed with a clear plan in place which is tried and tested pre-order. The SGO support plan must be clear about whether special guardians can make decisions to increase family time or progress to unsupervised. Birth parents can seek legal advice to challenge family time, and the court will decide and may make an order in respect of these arrangements. 

If there's a risk to the child/ren during any family time visits special guardians should terminate the visit, and further visits shouldn't take place until the issues have been addressed, and measures to safeguard are in place. You can seek support and advice from the Special Guardianship Support social worker, or legal advice, but if a child has suffered harm this should be reported to the local children’s services.

After the SGO is granted, you may wish to seek advice and support around barriers or difficulties with family time, eg relationship issues impacting upon the SGO placement. If this is the case advice and support can be offered by the SGO support worker, and in some cases an SGO review will be necessary to inform an update to the SGO support plan.

Mediation

It may be that you, birth parents, or children subject to the order require support in respect of strengthening or re-establishing family relationships. The SGO Team can support you by offering mediation, support, advice and recommendations, but that team doesn't have the authority to officially direct people to behave in certain ways. Therefore, parties may wish to seek independent legal advice in situations where agreement or compromises can't be reached, which would need to be privately funded.

Financial

Advice will be provided about SGO financial support at the enquiry stage / during the SGO assessment process. Advice on available grants and support to apply for relevant benefits can be accessed via the SGO Team as required.

After the SGO has been granted, you can request a financial assessment if there's a significant change in financial circumstances or the child’s needs or circumstances. 

For SGOs granted under another local authority where financial support is already in place you'll be signposted back to the originating local authority as they remain responsible for any financial support granted at the time of the order. Please refer to our Financial Support for Children Subject to Special Guardianship Orders Policy April 2021.

Early Years Pupil Premium

If your child is in early years education, your early years provider could be eligible for extra funding to help support your child. You can apply for Early Years Pupil Premium if:

  • Your child is aged 9 months to two years old
  • Your child is three or four years old and you get 15 hours free childcare
  • You're in receipt of certain benefits
  • If a child in your care was looked after by a local authority but left care under adoption, a special guardianship order or a child arrangements order

Further information is available on the Gov.UK website.

Pupil Premium

The Pupil Premium grant is funding to improve educational outcomes for disadvantaged pupils in state-funded schools in England.

The grant also provides support for children and young people with parents in the regular armed forces, referred to as Service Pupil Premium (SPP). This has been combined into Pupil Premium payments to make it easier for schools to manage their spending. Pupils who the SPP intends to support aren't necessarily from financially disadvantaged backgrounds.

Pupil Premium funding is allocated to eligible schools based on the number of:

  • Pupils who are recorded as eligible for free school meals, or have been recorded as eligible in the past six years (referred to as Ever 6 FSM)
  • Service pupil premium is additional funding for schools with pupils who have parents serving in the armed forces.
  • Children previously looked after by a local authority or other state care, including children adopted from state care or equivalent from outside England and Wales

For more information take a look at the Gov.UK website. For information about eligibility for Pupil Premium Plus for children who were previously looked after, please refer to the related information on this page.

Education

Virtual schools have non-statutory extended duties to develop their strategic leadership role in promoting the educational outcomes for children in 'kinship care' arrangements. Virtual schools will be asked to:

  • Raise awareness of and promote the educational achievement, progress and attendance for this group of children, including advising schools on how to avoid exclusion, for example
  • Provide advice and information to kinship carers who support their children under a special guardianship order or child arrangements order, regardless of whether the child was looked after by the local authority
  • Answer queries from schools/settings where permission has been given

The reason for virtual schools having this extended duty is because research indicates that the outcomes for children who grow up in kinship care have overall better outcomes than those who grow up in ‘non-parental care’, but that their outcomes can fall below those children who have a social worker. Find out more from our 'Support for kinship carers' page.

Access to training

If you require specific training this can be explored with the SGO support team. This may include attending local authority foster carer training (for previous foster carers), or training delivered through our Early Help Team or other professional agencies.

Networking

The SGO support team will arrange coffee mornings/networking opportunities. The SGO support team can also explore buddying-up experiences involving existing special guardians and new special guardians.  

Update on services and support available within Shropshire / keeping in touch

SGO newsletters are sent quarterly (or more often if required). This frequency aims to keep you updated on any new local support services or wider support available. It's also a reminder that SGO support is available from the local authority.

Annual contact from an SGO support social worker to offer a review of the SGO support plan

The SGO support team will contact you annually to offer a review of the SGO support plan should this be required. Special guardians can also contact the SGO team during working hours if advice or support is required in the meantime. 

Early help

The SGO team can signpost special guardians to early help services, or special guardians can access this directly. Find out more about the early help service from our 'Early help' pages. 

For children who were looked after immediately prior to the granting of the SGO

Pupil Premium Plus for children previously looked after

Pupil Premium Plus (PP+) is a grant made by the Department of Education to raise the attainment of children looked after and previously looked after, and close the gap with their peers. PP+ for children looked after is allocated to virtual schools and for children who ceased being looked after upon the granting of an adoption order, special guardianship order or child arrangements order. The school must add the child’s name to a census each October for the school to be allocated the funding each April. The aim of the grant is to support them towards achieving their full potential, and developing their aspirations and goals.

The SGO support team or Shropshire Virtual School can support you to work with schools and settings to agree how the PP+ will be spent, ensuring that it's used on well-evidenced interventions to diminish the difference and realise the potential of their children, irrespective of where they live or attend school. Find out more from our PP+ page and the Gov.UK website.

Priority school admissions/support in school

Children who have previously been looked after must be given priority for admission to the school of their carer's choice. Therefore, if changing schools or transitioning to secondary school, special guardians should make it clear on any admission forms that a child was previously looked after and is now subject to an SGO. There should be a designated teacher within the school who should be the initial point of contact to promote the child’s education. They have responsibility for ensuring that school staff understand and are supportive of children who were previously in the care system and subject to an SGO.

The Adoption Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF)

The ASGSF provides funds to local authorities to pay for essential therapeutic services for eligible children. If this is felt to be required, special guardians can request an SGO assessment of need to explore the need and eligibility. More information can be found on the First4Adoption website.

Leaving care entitlement

Depending on the child’s circumstances and the time they spent in care, the law describes four different groups of care leaver:

  • Eligible child
  • Relevant child
  • Former relevant care leaver
  • Qualifying care leaver

The care leaver status of eligible children applies between the ages of 16 to 25. Further information about the types of care leaver, entitlement to support and services, and contact details for Shropshire Leaving Care Team can be found on our leaving care page.