Behaviour that challenges

Author:FosterWiki
Published:16 May 2023
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Behaviour that challenges

A guide to behaviour that challenges, critical and acute situations, responding, reporting, recording and support.

“Behaviour is the language of trauma. Children will show you before they tell you that they are in distress.”
Micere Keels

Introduction to behaviour that challenges

Our children and young people come to us with complex needs and many adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) compounding their trauma.
This can manifest itself in the presentation of behaviours that are challenging and can be upsetting, worrying and confusing for a fostering family and the child or young person.
Some extreme behaviours can also present a safeguarding risk for the child or young person, other children in the fostering family and the carers themselves.

This page guides what is expected of us in our statutory role as foster carers, how to access support and what to do.

It is not intended as instruction on trauma-informed care or de-escalation techniques which can be accessed through your fostering provider.

“This is such a grey area, sadly many of the ‘behaviour management’ policies don’t really feel fit for purpose in light of what we know now about trauma, many still focusing on rules, sanctions, isolation, withdrawal of possessions, pocket money, outings and other such punishments. In my experience, these things rarely work or feel right. I’ve also found, from personal experience, that trying to get any fostering service to agree to how acute situations should be managed with individual children is notoriously difficult, it seems like they would rather leave it and not commit to anything as when things do go wrong the foster carers just have to deal with the aftermath, which can often be an allegation.”
Sarah Anderson, Founder

What the National Minimum Standards say about behaviour that challenges

It’s crucial to remember that the NMS underpin our role as foster carers, it’s not always easy to remember this as we work with and care for children in a home setting and are often told we are ‘just parents’.

So knowing your NMS is vital, as it shows what is expected of us, what we are governed by and the limitations of our role.

STANDARD 3 – Promoting positive behaviour and relationships

3.1 Foster carers have high expectations of all of the foster children in their households.
3.2 Foster carers provide an environment and culture that promotes, models and supports positive behaviour.
3.3 Children are able to develop and practice skills to build and maintain positive relationships, be assertive and to resolve conflicts positively.
3.4 Children are encouraged to take responsibility for their behaviour in a way that is appropriate to their age and abilities.
3.5 Foster carers respect the child’s privacy and confidentiality, in a manner that is consistent with good parenting.
3.6 Foster carers have positive strategies for effectively supporting children where they encounter discrimination or bullying wherever this occurs.
3.7 Foster carers receive support on how to manage their responses and feelings arising from caring for children, particularly where children display very challenging behaviour, and understand how children’s previous experiences can manifest in challenging behaviour.
3.8 All foster carers receive training in positive care and control of children, including training in de-escalating problems and disputes. The fostering service has a clear written policy on managing behaviour, which includes supporting positive behaviour, de-escalation of conflicts and discipline. The fostering service’s policy is made clear to the responsible authority/placing authority, child and parent/s or carers before the placement begins or, in an emergency placement, at the time of the placement.
3.9 Each foster carer is aware of all the necessary information available to the fostering service about a child’s circumstances, including any significant recent events, to help the foster carer understand and predict the child’s needs and behaviours and support the child within their household. The fostering service follows up with the responsible authority where all such necessary information has not been provided by the authority.
3.10 The fostering service’s approach to care minimises the need for police involvement to deal with challenging behaviour and avoids criminalising children unnecessarily.

Why information is crucial

In a 2020 Government report states that placements will be more effective and successful when all correct information is shared.

It is particularly important when it comes to any behaviours as the foster carer can be prepared and understand the underlying causes, the traumatic events, the adverse childhood experiences and the triggers that underly this behaviour. When carers can understand the ‘why’ they can respond in a supportive and understanding way.

Behaviour that challenges

The Government admitted in their report they had a fair amount of feedback reporting on variable quality and depth of information about children that was shared with foster carers at and before the point of placement.

“Most carers, however, felt that the more information they had, the more informed a choice they could make. It provided the opportunity for foster carers to improve their understanding of individual children and adapt their support strategies accordingly. There was a common agreement that, if the information is not shared effectively, it could have significant implications for children, including the risk of further instability.”

The National Minimum Standards say

3.9 Each foster carer is aware of all the necessary information available to the fostering service about a child’s circumstances, including any significant recent events, to help the foster carer understand and predict the child’s needs and behaviours and support the child within their household. The fostering service follows up with the responsible authority where all such necessary information has not been provided by the authority.

To most foster carers it is imperative, not optional when a child is placed with you, that you have all the information about them, especially around behaviours, as one foster carer put it:

“I think every child I’ve had, I’ve found out a lot of information later on. Sometimes it’s not too bad, but sometimes it’s actually quite significant… you may have addressed a situation a different way, or you may have understood it better. I just think it’s a shame.”

Sometimes fostering services feel giving carers all the information about behaviour may prevent them from placing a child and often omit crucial details about a child’s outward behavioural expressions.

As one foster carer states in the Government’s 2020 report on matching:

“Some carers believed that information was deliberately withheld so as not to deter them from agreeing to look after a child. They were clear that they needed the full picture.”

Many children are placed in emergencies and all the information may not be available, however even in an emergency placement there will be plenty recorded about a child that should be available in a timely manner.

Having the complete picture of a child or young person will not put foster carers off but inform them, and that information is crucial to their care of the child, the safeguarding of that child, others in the fostering family and the wider community.

A foster carer from the 2020 report:

“Just because a child comes with a ‘label’ such as drugs, or arson, doesn’t mean a carer will say no to a placement. It does erode trust in the local authority or agency if the information is deliberately withheld. More importantly, it can lead to a placement breakdown.”

TOP TIP: Ensure you have all the information possible on the child or young person and don’t be afraid to ask for it. It is so important for the stability and success of both the child coming into the fostering family and those who care for them.

Behaviour Management Policies

As you can see from the NMS every fostering service should have a clear written policy on ‘Managing Behaviour’, the NMS also state that foster carers should have training around behaviour and de-escalation. Ask your authority or agency for both their policies and their training as soon as you start fostering, it may look like this:

Managing Behaviour

What the National Minimum Standards say:

3.8 All foster carers receive training in positive care and control of children, including training in de-escalating problems and disputes. The fostering service has a clear written policy on managing behaviour, which includes supporting positive behaviour, de-escalation of conflicts and discipline. The fostering service’s policy is made clear to the responsible authority/placing authority, child and parent/s or carers before the placement begins or, in an emergency placement, at the time of the placement.

TOP TIP: It is paramount that you follow your fostering service’s policies, but be aware of how you interpret them, if in doubt check with your SSW or manager, and get everything in writing.

FosterWiki on working with ‘Behavioural Policies’

Disclaimer: Not everyone agrees with how to manage behaviour that challenges, so this section is written by a team of foster carers with 100yrs of practical front-line experience between them across the age groups, based on our FosterWiki principles of trauma-informed care for all our children and young people. There are many differences in opinion on behaviour that challenges and how to approach it, this is our approach, grounded in day-to-day experience and practice.

TOP TIP: It is paramount that you follow your fostering service’s policies, but be aware of how you interpret them, if in doubt check with your SSW or manager, and get everything in writing.

It is also important to note that even if some things are stated in ‘Behavioural Policies’ many of them could result in allegations, and it will not matter whether it was written in their policy or not.

Even when clearly in policies, things like (taken from real policies) sanctions, confiscations, restrictions on sending or receiving letters, reparation and restitution, paying for damage and replacements, curtailment of leisure activities, prevention of participation, additional chores, early bedtimes, removal of equipment such as TV/mobile phone, loss of privileges, suspension of pocket money can cause issues.

The overriding message from the FosterWiki team was they felt most looked-after children had already lost everything that meant anything to them so taking things away from them further is not only harmful but it is not effective. There are so many better ways to work with a child who is expressing underlying emotions and trauma than taking more from them.

Sanctions that include things like confiscating, withdrawing, made to repair things, ‘extra’ chores, withholding pocket money, preventing activities, removal of belongings or equipment, taking away privileges, changing bedtimes usually leads to more confrontation, not less.

Neither did the team feel that isolating children or sending them to their rooms is appropriate for the majority of looked-after children, trauma and adverse childhood experiences mean not only is this unlikely to be effective but may well trigger children further and have an adverse effect on their mental health.

TOP TIP: Every single child, every single fostering family, every single setting, and every single foster carer is unique. Therefore it is very difficult to have a one-size-fits-all approach. When you understand the child or young person in the context of their trauma and adverse childhood experiences, their backgrounds, identity, and culture, you can work with the needs, wishes and feelings of that child in the context of positive boundaries and household guidelines. It’s important for us as foster carers to remain open, flexible, inquisitive, and work in a relational way, in tune and connected with our children and young people.

TOP TIP: Some people feel that trauma-informed care and taking sanctions/punishments/withholding/isolation out of the equation will lead to the child ‘behaving like they want, out of control’. This is not the case, trauma-informed care is boundaried, but not in this way, in most cases it leads to a more self-regulated child with fewer incidents of behaviour that challenges.

FosterWiki recommends

The FosterWiki team have researched fostering services behaviour policies from across the UK and feels they need a complete overhaul to reflect modern trauma-informed care. There are also many things recommended in these policies that not only do not align with modern therapeutic and trauma-informed practice, research and outcomes. Many of the things suggested in current ‘behavioural management’ policies could also lead to a worsening of situations, destabilise placements, affect a child or young person’s mental health, and many can lead to allegations, and often do.

If you foster teenagers here is our page:https://fosterwiki.com/wiki/teenagers-a-guide-to-fostering-adolescents/

What do you do when things escalate

Working in a trauma-informed way will have a big impact on the reduction of escalations of behaviour, and will help foster carers be attuned to their children’s emotions and triggers and to help a child self-regulate by giving them a safe relationship with a fully self-regulated foster carer.

However, despite the best trauma-informed care, situations will sometimes escalate and often triggers can occur beyond our control.

An escalated situation can be one of the hardest things for a foster carer, and knowing where to turn for support and what to do can be challenging.

The best thing you can do is be prepared

Ensure your fostering service provides you with good trauma-informed education from day one, and this is continued in CPD. Understand the principles of trauma, co-regulation and self-regulation.
Find out if your fostering service has de-escalation training.
If it is a new child to the family make sure you get all the information you need.
Have any de-escalation or behaviour responses written in care plans, recognised and signed off by the team around the child.

What do I do?

TOP TIP: Make sure you always have all the phone numbers for the services you might need in an emergency, even if everything feels settled fostering has shown us that things can happen out of the blue and suddenly, so be prepared.

If you are advised to phone the police make sure you have the name of the person who advised you, the date and time recorded. The Police are a last resort and only for a safeguarding emergency and following a discussion with your social worker, a manager or an Out of Hours supervisor.
If the child or young person has gone missing you can find FosterWiki’s ‘Missing’ page here: https://fosterwiki.com/wiki/missing-children-and-young-people/
Send an incident report to your supervising social worker in an email and copy it to the child’s social worker, an email is a timed and dated record should you need to refer to this at a later date. Then report everything in your recordings.

TOP TIP: Often after incidents things settle down and the temptation is to do nothing, however to safeguard yourselves and the children, and create a full picture of the child for improving outcomes it’s important that you notify your social worker and child’s social worker (email is best so you have a dated and timed record) and report and record everything in your records

Record, Record, Record Accurate and timely recording is critical, it also enables working together with the team around the child to manage future risks and safeguard everyone involved
Here is the FosterWiki page, and our Top Tips on recording:
- https://fosterwiki.com/wiki/fostering-reporting-and-recording/
- https://fosterwiki.com/wiki/top-10-tips-reporting-and-recording/

If an incident has or does happen:

If it’s during the day phone your supervising social worker, if you can not get hold of them ring the duty line, and ask them how to proceed or what support they can put in place.
If it’s outside working hours or at the weekends your fostering service will have an Out Of Hours service phone number. Ring Out Of Hours (OOH) and explain what has happened. Often OOH is more of a recording service, and will refer you to the police if the incident is extreme or ongoing.

Restraint

This is a very controversial area in fostering, this is from CoramBAAF Practice notes, no 63 on restraint and physical intervention in foster care.

“Restraint and physical intervention in foster care, and the training of foster carers to undertake such activity, are controversial issues that tend to divide opinion. One perspective sees fostering as being about normal family life and suggests that where children or young people may need to be physically restrained because of the risk they pose to themselves, others or property, then they are best cared for in a setting other than foster care.

This perspective emphasises the difficulties of safely restraining children and young people in a family home when there may be only one carer present and highlights the risk that training foster carers to restrain will only make it more likely that such practices are used when they could and should be avoided.

The counter view emphasises the fact that foster carers are often looking after children and young people with challenging behaviour, and it is helpful if they are confident in being able to safely physically intervene, and even restrain them if that becomes unavoidable. Ofsted data (2017) shows that in 2015/16 there were 1,040 incidents of physical restraint, affecting 580 children and young people in foster care in England.

Furthermore, for a small minority of children, their behaviour requires that restraint is a necessary part of a behavioural management plan, and if carers are not trained in restraint, this will mean that these children may end up in children’s homes. Especially when considering younger children, it may be that a foster placement will best meet their needs and that with loving care in a family setting the need for restraint will hopefully diminish or cease over time.

This view would emphasise that properly trained foster carers will understand that physical intervention should be a last resort when other approaches to managing behaviour have been exhausted, and restraint must only be used to prevent harm to people or significant damage to property.

It is worth noting that children and young people in care – albeit mainly in residential settings – say that they recognise the need for restraint in certain contexts, but emphasise that this must be a last resort, and be carried out sensitively and carefully by well-trained adults using appropriate techniques (Children’s Rights Director, 2012).

This Practice Note references legislation and standards in England, but these are not dissimilar to legal frameworks in other UK countries. The issues discussed in this Practice Note should therefore also be relevant to foster carers and social workers in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Legal context – UK law

It is important that foster carers and those working with them understand the law in this area. Section 3(1) of the Criminal Law Act 1967 provides that “a person may use such force as is reasonable in the circumstances in the prevention of crime”. This is confirmed in common law – law developed by judicial precedent – and also allows an individual to use “proportionate force” in self-defence. In other words, although it is usually illegal to use force against another person, there are circumstances where this is permissible so long as the force is proportionate to the circumstances, not excessive, and used to prevent a crime.

It is also important to be clear that foster carers have a duty of care to the children they are looking after, and are expected to act in the manner of a good parent. This means that a carer is likely to be at fault if a child was putting themselves and/or others at risk, and the foster carer was in a position to safely intervene using physical force, but chose not to do so. For example, if a foster child was chasing another child with a knife with intent to stab them, no one would criticise a foster carer for tripping up the attacker and holding them on the ground.”

Allegations

Behavioural incidents and carers’ responses to them are often a trigger for allegations.

Foster carers can suffer from lack of support, burnt out and a lack of access to respite, appropriate mental health services for their children and inadequate training and are often left alone to cope with extreme behaviours. If things escalate it is invariably the foster carers that get questioned and investigated.

What can you do?

Request your fostering providers ‘Behaviour Management Policy’, something they should have an up-to-date version of as per the NMS and stat regs.
Work closely with your Supervising Social Worker and the team around the child to support your child and yourselves, especially if they are at risk of extreme behaviours.
Make sure you have an up-to-date care plan/safer care plan that details in writing any specific behaviour support systems applicable to the child in your care.
Keep your recordings up to date, factual and accurate.
Join the National Union of Professional Carers, the foster carer’s own government-approved
union. Allegations can come out of the blue and are very often triggered by behavioural incidents and you have to already be a member to access their representation casework and defence. Your fostering services will supply you with free support in allegations, however, this support is not there to defend or represent you, which is what you need in an allegation. Here is the FosterWiki page with the joining link: https://nupfc.com/

Foster carers comments

“It’s understanding the ‘why’ that helped us, and knowing they can project their anger that’s meant for others onto us, it’s all about knowing it’s not personal, I guess it’s about knowing yourself as well.”

“This is a very challenging area and very age dependent. Confiscating a teenager’s mobile phone will only cause an escalation of emotional response behaviour and undoubtedly increase tension and behaviour not reduce it. We do things differently in our home.”

“I am not aware of a situation where we are able to insist a child or young person ‘repairs damage’. Returning stolen property is a hard one as we have to accuse them of ‘stealing’ in the first place which won’t go down well. It’s like when they take food or hoard it in their bedrooms, this isn’t stealing, there is an underlying reason for it.”

“We didn’t find out about trauma-informed care until a couple of years into our fostering, when we did take some courses it changed everything but we felt bad about the children we had where it broke down, looking back we had no idea how to do anything and just presumed if we (and were encouraged to) parented them the same as we’d done with our own kids everything would be fine. That couldn’t have been further from the truth, it was not the same at all and 3 placements broke down because of it. I don’t think we would have continued if we’d not found a different way of doing it.”

“This is a hard one as although this is written in the behavioural policy in other policies it says under no circumstances can we withhold pocket money, we’d have an instant allegation or standard of care against us if we did this”

“Out of hours were useless, they just told us there was nothing they could do (it was a Sunday) and to call the police. We did call the police and then had a standard of care investigation into us ‘criminalising’ the young person (even though there was no further action) and then out of hours claimed they never told us to ring the police!!!”

“I read my LA’s policy and was shocked, I can’t think of an instance ever where so much of it would be appropriate, ‘punishments’ like this are not appropriate for a looked-after child and would not be effective either. All these policies need looking at, few are fit for purpose, and we wouldn’t dream of doing half the things they suggest.”

“Frankly you damned if you do and damned if you don’t in these circumstances, they should be supporting us with these ‘policies’ not leaving us vulnerable.”

Information, Help and Support

Help and support created for foster carers, by foster carers, we are the experts by experience. We have the first foster carers knowledge bank.

Please find our help and support page here.

Access both the open pages and members area. Both are free to access and footprint-free. The member’s area gives you privileged confidential access to FosterWiki’s experts by experience for advice and guidance. You will also find short courses and guides from the foster carer’s perspective, top tips, allegation help, templates, and the ability to add to FosterWiki. With more content being uploaded regularly.

Please let us know what information or advice pages you would find useful and we will put them in place. https://fosterwiki.com/register/

ACEs Allegations Behaviour Behaviour Management Policies Behaviour that challenges Behavioural Policies’ Challenges

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