It’s the phone call that every grandparent dreads. “Your daughter can’t look after your grandson. She’s in no fit state and the house is a tip! He can’t stay. If you won’t come and collect him he’ll have to go into care. Your daughter says you won’t want that and that you’ll step in.”

It’s at that moment specialist legal advice is needed.

As the leading firm in the country for kinship care and championing grandparent’s rights, Ridley & Hall’s public law department advise kinship carers daily in relation to their right for support from local authorities.

Clients often enquire as to whether the council has a duty to support them when they have taken on grandchildren or nieces and nephews and other family members. These carers often approach the local authority for support and are told that the placement is a ‘private arrangement’. But what is a ‘private arrangement’?

Helen Jarvis, trainee solicitor, comments, “A private arrangement occurs when there is absolutely no social services involvement with a family. It is simply an arrangement whereby a mother or father asks a family member or friend to care for the children usually because they feel that they are unable to do so themselves. There will be no social worker involved in making any of the arrangements and it is often the case that social services are totally unaware that the child no longer lives with their parents.”

In practice, it seems that local authorities often use the phrase ‘private arrangement’ in order to deny support to a carer. There seems to be a large number of kinship carers who are told that the placement has been made privately yet the carers advise that they were asked to care for the child.

“One of my clients was continually told that the placement of her grandson was a ‘private arrangement’ between her and the mother. The client went round to the mother’s house in June 2012 as she was suffering with mental health issues. My client was so concerned for her daughter’s safety that she phoned for an ambulance. The ambulance took the mother to the hospital and the police checked with the client that she was able to care for the child. A few days later a social worker visited my client and asked her if she would agree to care for the child longer term. My client signed an agreement that stated the child would remain in her care and she would not allow the mother to have any unsupervised contact with the child.

“Clearly this was not a placement which arose from a private arrangement between the mother and my client. The mother was in no fit state at the time to agree with her mother to care for the child and social services made it clear that the child was to remain in the client’s care. If the client had been unable to care, the child would no doubt have been placed into foster care. In this case, the client was eventually granted a weekly special guardianship order allowance after over a year of fighting for support.

“This is a scenario we are seeing over and over again. If a social worker asks you to care for the child, stating that the alternative is a foster care placement, clearly the local authority should be responsible for the child and you should be assessed for financial support. If further down the line you obtain a private law order for the child, such as a child arrangements order or special guardianship order, you are entitled to request a financial assessment for an allowance. If you are unsure of whether you are entitled to any support, please make sure you get sound legal advice.”

To contact Helen Jarvis and her team, please call 01484 538421.