A Case for Change for foster care – improvements that need to be made

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While we welcome the broad nature of the Review and its concentration on supporting and keeping relationships for kids in care, little is discussed in the event for Change on how to improve foster care particularly. We, therefore, had a lot to say in our action

Read our response.

We ensured our response shows the views of our foster carer and fostering services members. Thank you to everybody who followed our call to share their views with us and make suggestions for promotion.

The key things we heard from our members were:

The status of the foster carer in the team around the child requires enhancement.
Foster carers need to be better supported and remunerated.
Long-lasting foster care requires to have higher recognition as a permanence option and children in long-lasting foster care should be afforded the same support and financing as children in other permanence alternatives.
Additionally, we think the system requires to be able to support older children and kids with complex needs better.

The good and the options

We are conscious there are numerous locations in foster care that need enhancing and weren’t highlighted in the event for Change. Nevertheless, the document likewise fell brief of commemorating how transformational foster care is and just how much good practice is currently happening in fostering.

In our action, we suggested solutions that we are positive will enhance foster look after both kids and young people, as well as their foster carers, such as

better sufficiency planning to fulfill kids’ requirements in your area,
a national register of foster carers,
making innovative designs of foster care, such as the Mockingbird Programme which supplies peer support for foster carers and enhances retention and positioning stability, available in all regional authorities locations.
We also highlighted areas where more conversation is required, especially around changing the culture of foster care to promote relationships for children and the modifications that require to happen to guarantee foster carers’ skills and knowledge are valued.