What is kinship care?
There are different types of kinship care. You may become a different type of kinship carer as your situation changes over time. Your rights, responsibilities, and the support you can get will depend on your specific circumstances.
Private foster care
Private foster care is when someone who is not a child’s parent or close relative, such as a great aunt, cousin, mum’s friend or neighbour), looks after them for 28 days or more. Private fostering arrangements are agreed by the parent and private foster carer and not the local authority. As a private foster carer, you may be asked to make day-to-day decisions for the child, but you do not have parental responsibility.
Kinship foster care
Kinship foster care is when a family member or friend becomes a child’s official foster carer. You must be assessed and approved before the child comes to live with you. The child is considered ‘looked after’ by the local authority, which shares parental responsibility with the child’s parents.
Special Guardianship Orders (SGO)
Special Guardianship Orders (SGO) are a legal order given by a family court. When you become a Special Guardian, the child will live with you permanently until they are 18 years old. Special Guardians share parental responsibility with the child’s parents but can make nearly all major decisions about the child without asking for their permission.
In Bury, we have a dedicated team delivering a support service for families in kinship care arrangements, including Special Guardianship. If you have an SGO and live in Bury, or you have an SGO and live outside of Bury but we supported the SGO process within the last 3 years, then you are eligible to receive support from our team.”
Meet the Team
Our Kinship support team consists of:
Liz West – SGO Support Lead
Hannah Hughes – SGO Family Support Worker
Danielle Lee – SGO Family Support Worker
As of September, there will also be a new member of the Virtual School team dedicated to advice and information around the education of all children in kinship care.
What’s on offer
Advice and guidance on issues relating to the child(ren) you care for under an SGO.
- You can contact our team on SGODuty@bury.gov.uk, or you can call our SGO duty phoneline on 0161 253 6680 on Tuesdays from 10am to 12pm, or Thursdays from 1pm to 3pm.
- If you need support outside of these hours, you can also access our main duty phoneline on 0161 253 6666, Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm.
- If you ever need urgent assistance, you should contact the Bury Emergency Duty Team on 0161 253 6606.
Access to an initial assessment of need to receive therapeutic support services through the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF).
- The ASGSF provides therapeutic services to SGO carers and children and young people up to the age of 21 (or 25 where the young person has an Education, Health and Care Plan).
- An assessment of need will be completed to determine the support required.
- Eligibility requires the child to have been looked after by a local authority prior to the SGO being granted.
Support groups and drop-ins for our SGO carers.
- These currently take place roughly every 6 weeks during school term time.
- Support group sessions can vary from a chance to offload your worries or concerns, to listening to a guest speaker talk about a relevant topic, or an in-person training session or workshop
- Details of how to join our mailing list and receive updates about support groups and drop-ins can be found at the bottom of this page
1:1 support, including home visits where desired.
- We can offer support with navigating challenges in school
- We can assist with GP and CAMHS appointments
- We can signpost to other services that may be appropriate such as Bury Adult Learning Centre or charities
Training sessions, in person and online, relevant to your experiences.
- Our kinship carers carers also have access to all of the training provided to the local authority’s foster carers. Please contact us for the latest brochure of foster carer training
Family art activity days.
- These take place during all half-term holidays and are usually in a central location.
If you would like to know more about any of the above, please contact the Kinship team via email or telephone.
Mailing List
We have also set up a mailing list for our Special Guardians to receive email updates and for us to share any resources, events or relevant information. Our mailing list uses an ‘opt in’ policy.
If you haven’t already done so and would like to be added to this mailing list, please email your explicit consent for us to share information with you to SGOduty@bury.gov.uk. Please include CONSENT in the subject and your full name in the email. You can withdraw your consent at any time by emailing and asking us to remove your name from the mailing list.
You can also write to us at Fostering Team 3, 3 Knowsley Place, Duke Street, Bury, BL9 0EJ.