LAC reviews are a legal requirement for LAC - every 6 months, though Harriet says one due 28 days after move and I suppose I am a bit rusty, but can't remember the 28 day one. Anyway you will fine the sw will always visit before a review so that they are "clued up" for the review. They are chaired by an independent chairperson, and it is as others say to review the case to see if things are going ok, and if not, to take whatever action needs to be undertaken. Reviews do have to look at whether a child should return home - this is a statutory requirement and indeed can only be made at a 6 monthly review. Contact will also be discussed and the nat parent should be at the review.
Your part in it will be to tell the review about how the child has been in your care. As you say you have only had the child a short time, so won't be able to contribute much. Just about her eating, sleeping, playing routine really.
You mention "evidence gathering" - this is not really the purpose of the review, though of course if mother is being assessed (which she probably will be) such issues as contact will inform part of the assessment. You don't need to worry about the SSD side of things, but your link worker should be able to explain matters to you, so just ask her to do this.
I think quite a few foster carers (as demonstrated on this thread) feel that the child's needs are over-ridden by the needs of the parents. To some extent this is true unfortunately because every decision taken should be in the child's best interests. I think that the reasons for this is because if in fact rehab with NPs is ruled out and the LA initiate care proceedings, then they have to have a cast iron case, and lawyers acting for NPs will pick on anything and everything to prove that the NPs haven't been given a fair chance to prove their suitability to parent in a safe way. I reckon the reason the sw was paying the NP travel money for her to attend contact (and this is often done if the journey to the contact centre is a long one including 2 buses or something) was anticipating the NM complaining that she couldn't afford the fares to get to contact. It probably isn't true in most cases, but defence lawyers will make much of this in court.
Social workers and indeed all professionals involved in care proceedings need to be able to evidence all the comments that they make in their reports. It really is a tough business and they are subjected to hours of cross examination by defence lawyers, which is fair, but very very stressful.
Unless the Judge is satisfied that the NPs have been given every opportunity to demonstrate that they are suitable parents, he/she will not make the Order, be that a Care Order or Placement Order (for adoption).
In some cases the defence lawyers (acting for the parents) will request the Judge to agree to an independent assessor of the parents and this has to be agreed by all parties in the proceedings. Since my retirement from SS in 2004 I was until last year, working on a freelance basis and was appointed by the court to carry out an independent assessment. Incidentally all parties have to agree on a named person to carry out the assessment, so you havbe to get yourself known as a credible assessor in the courts.
In the vast majority of cases after thorough investigations I have been in agreement with the LA. In 2 cases, I thought that the mothers had not had the opportunity of a residential assessment with their child, and it was agreed that this would be arranged. In the one case the mother left the residential placement without her baby, and in the other one the Res Centre had grave concerns about the care of the child, so when the cases came back to court, the appropriate Orders were made.
There will be fewer of these independent assessments made now, because the Legal Services Commission are refusing to pay the rate for the job.
Sorry I'm going on to much...............