Complaints about your care

The details below shows you what to do if your complaint relates to to the care you are receiving in your foster home, problems with your foster family, a decision made by your foster carer or something TACT has done.

Stage one

  • Either you or the person you have told about your complaint need to tell someone at TACT.

  • If we suspect that you or another young person is being harmed, or is likely to be harmed, we have to tell your social worker straight away and we have to have a meeting to make sure that everyone is going to be safe.

  • Otherwise, we will try to sort out your complaint as soon as possible.

  • If your complaint can’t be sorted out immediately and is more complicated, then we might need to have a meeting between you, the TACT Supervising Social Worker and your foster carer, if appropriate. If you are still not happy, you can ask for your complaint to be looked at again by TACT's Children’s Officer, who is also the Director for Performance and Quality and a qualified social worker.

Stage two

  • The Children’s Officer will either help you write your complaint down or you can tell them what you are not happy about and they can write it down for you.

  • They will then talk to you and any other people involved and try to solve your problem. They will write to you to let you know their findings; what they’ve found out and what they suggest to solve the problem.

  • If you are not happy with the decision made at this stage, this will then go to stage three.

Stage three

  • If you still feel the problem has not been sorted out, you can ask for a group of three people to meet. This is called a "review panel". They will look at the issues involved, but will not reinvestigate the complaint or consider any new matters that may be raised.

  • If you want the panel to look at your complaint, you need to let TACT know within 28 days of speaking to the Children’s Officer. You may want to ask an adult you trust to help you write down your feelings.

  • The panel will write to you when it has met to let you know what it has decided.

Other options

You can also speak to your foster carer or TACT Supervising Social Worker (SSW) during their visits. You may feel that you want to tell your social worker first or you may choose to tell someone else you can trust, such as a teacher or friend, who can then pass your complaint to TACT.