The Fostering Network responds to the government’s statement on children’s social care
We welcome the government’s policy statement ‘Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive’ and its mission to give every child the best chance in life. There has been under-investment and lack of priority given to children’s social care for far too long, so we are pleased to see this much needed reset. However, we’re disappointed by the lack of focus on foster care and the missed opportunity to improve support for care leavers by extending the Staying Put scheme.
We hear all too often from both foster carers and care experienced young people that they want to stay with their fostering family past the age of 21, but can’t because there is not the funding to support it. As a result, plans to extend Staying Put from the ages of 21 to 23 were set out in the Independent Care Review and previous government strategy, but there was no mention of it in this week’s statement. We need to see commitments to extend Staying Put honoured, so young people with care experience have the same opportunities to succeed in life as their non care-experienced peers.
We’re pleased to see the commitment to early intervention and ensuring that every child can remain with their family where possible. According to the statement, all local authorities will be required to offer family group decision making, which ensures the whole family is involved in planning a response to concerns about a child’s safety. This is a step in the right direction and an approach applied in our Step Up Step Down programme here at The Fostering Network, which uses experienced foster carers to help keep families together, building on strengths and growing resilience.
The government’s pledge to support children to live with fostering and kinship families, instead of residential care is encouraging. Evidence shows that living in a fostering family has the power to transform children’s lives, so all children who can’t stay at home should be supported to live in a family setting where possible.
We are also pleased to see steps set out to make the care system more child-centred and tackle profiteering amongst providers. The current system is not working for children and is having a detrimental impact on their lives. We need better quality provision in the local area children live in, and the investment to match, so children can be placed in homes close to their family and friends. An Ofsted report in 2022 revealed a third of children are being placed in residential care when their care plan states they should be in foster care, as there aren’t enough local foster carers. This means local authorities have to rely on costly residential places that are not always in children’s best interests.
To improve foster care provision, we are calling on the government to introduce a register for foster carers as a matter of urgency. This would help improve placement matching and sufficiency of placements, as local authorities would know exactly where their local foster carers are, allowing children to be placed closer to their networks.
The £15 million announced to boost the number of foster carers is a step in the right direction, but we also need to focus on retaining the many brilliant carers we have. We are disappointed that the statement does not include any mention of the Care Review and the previous government’s plans to introduce delegated authority by default into legislation. Foster carers tell us that this would mean they are more respected by children’s services and have more freedom to make better day-to-day decisions about the children in their care, who they know best.
It is encouraging to see the government setting out such an ambitious agenda for children’s social care so early on in their tenure. Many of these measures will achieve long lasting changes for children’s lives. However, we need to see a greater focus on improving foster care in the Children and Wellbeing Bill when it is laid before parliament.
