‘I'm Here as a Social Worker’: A Qualitative Study of Immigration Status Issues and Safeguarding Children in Private Fostering Arrangements in the UK

Abstract

Private fostering of non‐citizen children in the UK has become a focus of child protection social work since the Laming report into the death of Victoria Climbié. This paper reports on a qualitative study that aimed to understand children's experiences of private fostering and social work practice. The study involved interviews with social workers and privately fostered children, reviews of advice line calls to Children and Families Across Borders and a review of safeguarding reports from London boroughs. It found that many children who present as ‘privately fostered’ have been in effect abandoned by their parents and are living with strangers. While the homes that they live in may be safe, insecure immigration status renders children vulnerable and, if not regularised, will lead to complicated and stalled transitions to adulthood. The key findings of this study are that children whose parents are not resident in the UK are treated as privately fostered, but the underlying premise of private fostering legislation, which is that the parent retains meaningful responsibility for the child, is often not in place. Key Practitioner Messages Privately fostered children may have insecure immigration status. Social workers should consider regularising immigration status for privately fostered children as part of safeguarding. If a child's parents are not resident in the UK, social workers should consider whether the local authority has a duty to make arrangements for him/her to have a safe home.

Broader Concepts of Safeguarding: To Teach, Nurture, Care and Protect

“…However, they did not consider issues of the child's immigration status to be their responsibility. Nevertheless, the study by Wells () found that children themselves are often unaware of their immigration status, and it is often only when they start applying for jobs or university that they realise they have no legal status in the UK. In relation to private fostering, the social worker's responsibility ceases when the child reaches 16 years, so he/she is often unaware of the issues that these young people may face when they reach adulthood.…”

“…Our next paper portrays a very different kind of culture in which professional boundaries may have prevented a group of practitioners from recognising the most important needs of a particular group of vulnerable children. In ‘I'm here as a social worker’, Karen Wells () explores the experiences and perceptions of privately fostered children, their carers and their social workers. This qualitative study focused on children whose parents live overseas and who have been sent to live in the UK with others from their community of origin.…”

Managing Multiplicity: Adult Children of Post-Independence Nigerians and Belonging in Britain

“…While there is a practice of children in Nigeria being raised by other than birth parents, in which parents may seek 'social advantages for their children' (Goody, 1978, as cited in Bailkin, 2009 or to 'sediment and mobilize networks' (Wells, 2017, p. 218), it can be argued that fostering/care in post-colonial Britain was different in kind. Considering recent transnational fostering situations in the UK, Wells (2017Wells ( , 2019 argues that a crisis, such as family breakdown, is more often the catalyst for seeking care from outside natal family. Bailkin (2009, p. 106) similarly argues for 'exigency' rather than 'culture' to understand extra-family child-care among first-generation West Africans as an outcome of 'economic necessity and the pressures of migration.'…”