Permanence and Care Excellence: Background,approach and evidence

Year: 2016
Topic: Looked after at home, Permanence, Residential care
Author: Fiona Mitchell, Robert Porter

When a child is removed from their birth family most children experience a period of uncertainty while decisions are made about their future care. This uncertainty can often be prolonged and children can move through a series of temporary placements with different carers, or may be reunited with their parents before being removed into care again.

Our PACE programme has been developed to reduce the waiting times by identifying new ways of working.  

This document covers several areas:

  • Early assessment and intervention
  • Family Contact
  • Confident and timely decisions 
  • Leadership and culture
  • Tracking progress using data

We break it down, looking at challenges, evidence from research, how to act on this evidence with the PACE team and we also suggest recommended wider reading.