Complaints to your Local Authority
Complaints are dealt with in different ways depending on what it is you wish to complain about. The details below will hep you understand what to do if your complaint is about a decision that has been made by your Local Authority. This might include a problem with your social worker, contact arrangements with your family or a decision made at your review.
Stage one
- Talk to your Local Authority social worker or the social worker’s manager.
- Hopefully, your social worker will sort out any complaint you may have, but if you are not happy with the answers you get, you can use your Local Authority’s Complaints Procedure. Your foster carer or TACT Supervising Social Worker (SSW) can help you do this.
Stage two
- If you don’t want to use the Local Authority Complaints Procedure at this stage, you can speak to your TACT SSW who visits you and your carer. They will write down your complaint and will give you a copy so you can check they’ve understood your concerns.
- Your SSW will then try to sort out the problem by talking to your social worker. If the problem can’t be sorted out this way, your SSW will arrange a meeting with all the people involved.
Stage three
- If, after the meeting, you are still not happy with the way that people have dealt with your complaint, you may feel it is time to use the complaints procedure offered by your Local Authority. The TACT SSW can help you do this.
- We can also contact organisations such as Voice to see if they can offer you additional support in dealing with your complaint.
What to do now?
So ring your Local Authority social worker to discuss any comments/questions you may have now or contact your TACT Supervising Social Worker for advice.