The Local Authority Fostering Services (Wales) Regulations 2018

Education, employment and leisure activities

27.—(1) The local authority provider must ensure that the educational attainment of children placed with foster parents is promoted.

(2) In particular the local authority provider must—

(a) establish a procedure for monitoring the educational attainment, progress and school attendance of children placed with foster parents,

(b) in relation to school aged children placed with foster parents, ensure foster parents promote the children’s regular attendance at school and participation in school activities, and

(c) provide foster parents with such information and assistance, including equipment, as may be necessary to meet the educational needs of children placed with them.

(3) The local authority provider must ensure that foster parents promote the leisure interests of children placed with them and support them to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to their age and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts(1).

(4) Where any child placed with foster parents has attained the age where they are no longer required to receive compulsory full-time education, the local authority provider must assist with the making of, and give effect to, arrangements made for the child in respect of their education, training and employment.

(1)

Section 1 of the Rights of Children and Young Persons (Wales) Measure 2011 (nawm 2) requires the Welsh Ministers, when exercising any of their functions, to have due regard to the requirements of Part 1 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child adopted and opened for signature, ratification and accession by General Assembly resolution 44/25 of 20 November 1989 (“the Convention”). Article 31 of Part 1 of the Convention recognises a child’s right to play.