A start-up approach to reimagining fostering

The care review also sets out a vision for the future, but, in the words of the Children’s Commissioner, ‘the ideas… [are] only as good as their implementation.’ It is very likely that if reform is delivered by the same organisations that created the current mess, we’ll be here again in 15 years. We need fundamentally different organisations than the ones that landed us here.

Assembling a dream team

We are a collaborative of social workers, and experts in human centred design and digital transformation supported by a network of care experienced people. Our aim is to set up a not-for-profit start-up that raises the bar for service delivery in fostering. We’re also lucky to have Katie Waldgrave (Co-Founder and Director, Now Teach) and Dominic Campbell (Founder, FutureGov and Co-Founder, Impossible Ideas Inc.) bringing their serious experience in public sector entrepreneurship to the team.

We’re building an organisation that takes the best of modern start-up tools and culture, without the profit-driven incentives, and with community power designed in. We want to make the experience of foster care seamless for carers, loving and supportive for children and young people and meaningful for social workers.

Changing the perception of fostering

As Josh MacAlister sets out in the Independent Care Review, recruiting more foster carers is crucial. We need to get more excellent people into foster care, which means we need to dramatically change the perception of fostering. Fostering can and should be an aspirational life choice.

It is estimated that by 2026 there will be a recruitment deficit of 25,000 foster care families (Social Market Foundation, 2021). Yet we continue to rely on old-fashioned methods of recruiting, based on word of mouth and local adverts. Study after study shows that the general population knows little about foster care, and that much of what they think they know is based on myths and misconceptions.

This is a problem, but it also shows the huge potential for targeting, recruiting and supporting new groups of people who wouldn’t have otherwise thought about care. In order to create a more diverse foster carer pool, we need to rethink how we approach people and how we make fostering easier to integrate with their lives.

A 21st century recruitment & support service

The first service we’re designing is one that can have an immediate impact. We are building a non-profit to recruit and retain more great foster carers. The organisation will support Local Authorities and charitable IFAs.

• Data shows that there are people out there who are currently not reached but would be great foster carers. We will use data analytics as a basis for a recruitment campaign that will target a currently untapped pool of people.

• We’re designing a wrap around support programme for people who want to become foster carers. Our support will add to the statutory training delivered by partners to maximise retention of Now Foster carers. It will be in large part delivered by care experienced people and experienced foster carers.

• We’ll build a strong peer network from the start, so that people applying to become foster carers can lean on each other, stay motivated throughout the process and get information and support from people who know what they are going through.

• We’ll build a digital ecosystem around the application journey to guide people through the process, provide reassurance and celebrate milestones to keep them engaged at any stage.

Whilst we plan to start with recruitment and retention support we have an ambition to transform wider parts of the experience – looking at how to support foster carers to continuously learn, working with care experienced people to provide better support for families and finding new ways to give children and young people a voice and become active participants on their journey.

Immediate next steps

• We are currently designing the recruitment & retention service and are aiming to run a pilot in 2023. We will be partnering with TACT for the pilot and are still looking for Local Authority partners, so please do reach out.

• Whilst we have secured some funding for a pilot we’re still looking for investors and supporters who can help make sure we hire the best people and build the best systems to run a genuinely transformative recruitment & retention service.

Laurie Kilby, is a qualified social worker and secondary school teacher who is currently training to be a foster carer with her partner; Beth Vecchione, is also a qualified social worker and director of Care to Dance, a national dance group for care experienced young people; Jan Blum,  is co-founder of Impossible Ideas Inc., a former design director and head of service design at FutureGov and working in public sector digital transformation.