Newport Chronicle: A boost in weekly payments is to be made available to certain caregivers throughout Caerphilly County Borough as acknowledgment of the vital part they play in caring for at-risk young people.
Selected caregivers within Caerphilly County Borough will receive higher weekly payments to acknowledge the essential contribution they make in looking after vulnerable children. The authority will roll out fresh £120 weekly sums for validated kinship and connected caregivers – individuals who are typically relatives or trusted family acquaintances of children in care. Supporters of the fresh approach stated the payments would tackle disparities in assistance offered to these caregivers when measured against conventional foster providers.
Cllr Elaine Forehead, the cabinet member responsible for social care, explained that kinship and connected caregivers perform a vital function in offering secure, steady and caring homes for many of the most at-risk children, frequently with little notice and during periods of considerable family difficulty. Caerphilly County Borough Council offices are situated in Tredomen. The picture dates from March 2025. She noted that these caregivers frequently assume duties similar to those of standard foster carers, assisting children who have encountered adversity and complicated requirements, while preserving family ties and enhancing long-term results.
Addressing cabinet on Wednesday April 15, Cllr Forehead explained that the fresh payments would deliver improved and more uniform financial assistance arrangements, acknowledge the essential work of these caregivers, enhance placement security for children and support the council’s corporate parenting obligations. Under the fresh approach, caregivers will obtain the National Minimum Allowance from when a child is placed with them under provisional authorisation. Then, once they receive approval from the Foster Panel, caregivers will additionally get the fresh sum of £120 weekly per child, as acknowledgment of their caregiving duties.
Gareth Jenkins, the authority’s director of children’s services, explained that the additional payments represented an acknowledgement of the worth of the carer’s position. He told the gathering that from what they had observed, placements within extended family networks prove far more beneficial in terms of results, because children are aware of who they are, where they are, they preserve their feeling of self and frequently maintain constructive connections with their parents. He noted that they will continue attending their schools, if they are of school age. Looking ahead, he explained, it concerns that feeling of belonging and avoiding that split and separation from everything familiar to them.
The promise to enhance assistance for kinship and connected caregivers featured within the authority’s spending proposals for the present financial year.