The government has launched a national recruitment campaign to encourage adults in their 30s and 40s to consider fostering a child in the UK, as numbers of foster carers have fallen by 12% since 2019.
Following the DfE’s pledge to provide £88 million in funding to reform fostering, the Labour government announced the “first of its kind” initiative on Tuesday, highlighting its ambition to create 10,000 new foster care places by the end of the parliamentary term.
The campaign, looking to encourage more people to become foster carers, was launched at 10 Dowing Street and brought together foster carers, frontline workers and people with “lived experience of care”.
The call for action comes as the number of approved foster carers has fallen while the number of children needing care has increased.
A recent DfE polling found that “too many adults are ruling themselves out” before knowing more about the different routes into fostering, while two thirds (66%) of people believed they “could be a good foster carer if practical barriers were removed”.
As part of the major funding into fostering reforms, £12.4 million is being put into the Fostering Innovation Fund, which trials new models of foster care, such as short term ‘respite fostering’ and fostering at weekends, with the hope of appealing to a wider range of people.
It was announced on Tuesday that 11 programmes will be launched through the Fund, with some focused around recruiting weekend foster carers, supporting carers through allegations, parent-and-child fostering, therapeutic training, increasing diversity among foster carers and helping children move from residential care into foster families.
Children’s minister Josh MacAlister said: “Fostering changes lives, not just for the children who finally get the stability and love every child deserves, but for the carers themselves, who tell us it’s one of the most rewarding things they’ve ever done.
“Right now, thousands of children need that chance, and that’s exactly what our national campaign is about: cracking fostering open to ordinary people across England who have the values, the commitment, and the love to foster.
“This is part of a bigger reset of children’s social care, one that puts loving, stable relationships back at the heart of the system.”
The campaign is supported by further reforms to fostering, including a new rulebook for foster carers that “humanises the decision-making process”, digital tools to speed up recruitment, and funding for new approaches to fostering.
Rachel Cole, CEO of Black Foster Carers Alliance spoke of how “too many black children in care grow up without anyone around them who reflects who they are”.
She shared how support from social entrepreneurs’ foundation UnLtd and its new fostering accelerator has given a “boost” to the impact of founders working in the sector.
Mark Norbury, chief executive at UnLtd added: “A stronger fostering system will require both more foster placements and innovative, inclusive approaches to supporting children, young people and carers.
“Through our new fostering accelerator, supported by the Henry Smith Foundation, UnLtd is empowering social entrepreneurs to grow ventures that help create a more inclusive, caring and sustainable future for fostering across the UK.”
The campaign follows the launch of the Fostering Action Plan by the children’s minister in February and the launch of the Enduring Relationships Programme in June.
