Last week we wrote to the Minister for Children, Young People and The Promise, Natalie Don-Innes MSP, asking her to take the forthcoming Promise Bill as an opportunity to deliver real, lasting change for foster families.
Drawing on the priorities identified by our newly established foster carers’ advisory board – as well as the findings of our latest State of the Nations’ Foster Care survey, and engagement sessions for the Scottish Government’s Future of Foster Care consultation – our letter highlights the urgent need to improve foster carers’ value, status and recognition.
To achieve this, we’re calling on the Scottish Government to take the following key actions:
- Increase the Scottish Recommended Allowance and introduce a national minimum fee framework for foster carers, both including Continuing Care
- Introduce a national learning and development framework for foster carers
- Update the 2013 allegations guidance and place it on a statutory footing
- Introduce a national register for foster carers.
As the letter says, “We appreciate the work that is already ongoing to support the fostering sector, including the forthcoming national foster carer recruitment campaign which we are assisting with. However, we must now use the bill to make the changes needed to retain the foster carers we already have, and to prevent new carers from leaving soon after they are recruited.”
With hundreds of fostering households resigning every year, children and young people are being left without the families they need to care for them in their communities. Addressing foster carer retention will directly benefit children and young people looked after in Scotland, and is essential to Scotland’s work to keep The Promise by 2030.
Read the full letter here.
