Deeply entrenched and complex societal issues are contributing to a crisis in foster care. As people have their own children later in life and struggle to get on the housing ladder, they feel less able to become carers.
“Adulting” has always been hard but just how difficult people find it seems to be somewhat of a preoccupation for millennials and generation Z – those born between 1981 and 2009.
There’s much social commentary about how millennials and gen Z have difficulty achieving the same milestones as their parents, and things like finding a steady job, buying a house and having a family are generally being deferred until later life.
This has huge impacts for individuals, but it also has ramifications for wider society and, importantly, the generation of children and young people coming up behind them.
This is starkly demonstrated by the dwindling numbers of foster carers in the UK.
Sector-wide crisis
As the largest not-for-profit fostering agency in the UK, Barnardo’s has seen the number of its carers plummet over recent years.
Since 2015 the number of approved foster carers has decreased by more than a third. If we continue to lose foster carers at this rate, we’ll have none left by 2046.
But this is just part of the story. The foster carer recruitment crisis is replicated right across the sector. In England the number of applications received from prospective fostering households in 2022/23 was around 8,000 – 18% lower than it was four years before.
This, coupled with the fact that the number of children coming into care is at a record high and still rising is creating a real crisis in foster care.
Three-quarters of Barnardo’s foster carers are aged 55 or older and their advancing age means that many are heading towards retirement. Foster carers are retiring faster than younger ones can be recruited.
As of March, last year, there were 59,380 approved mainstream foster carers in the UK, an 8% decrease from 2019. And the number of children in care is now more than 100,000 in the UK, with more than 80,000 in care in England alone.
The vast majority of children coming into care go into foster care – 68% in England – so it is vitally important there are foster carers there to support them.
But we are facing the worst crisis Barnardo’s has seen in its history of fostering.
Societal issues
In general, millennials and gen Z simply don’t feel they’re in an “adult” enough place to be responsible for a child they’re not related to.
The number of younger adults living independently with children has been consistently falling over the last few decades, while the number living with their parents has been rising at a similar rate.
Currently, only around one in five 18- to 35-year-olds live in their own home with children of their own, compared with around half in 1980. Today the most common living arrangement for that age group is with their parents.
The astronomical cost of home ownership means a huge proportion of adults in the prime of their lives, who could make wonderful foster carers, are simply unable to open up their homes to children – because they don’t have one of their own.
Add in the enduring cost-of-living crisis and the aging cohort of current foster carers and we have a recipe for disaster.
Public support
According to polling by YouGov for Barnardo’s, people almost universally believe children in care deserve to live in the right homes with foster carers who can meet their needs.
Nearly three-quarters are worried there are not enough foster carers to meet the needs of the care system.
However, 79% of adults in the UK have never considered fostering and 90% are not likely to consider it in the next five years.
The generational divide is evident in the reasons people give for not fostering.
More than a quarter of respondents aged 18 to 54 said they didn’t have enough space at home, compared with 16% of over 54s.
More than one in five 18- to 54-year-olds said they didn’t have suitable accommodation, compared with 14% of over 54s.
A third of 25- to 44-year-olds said having or wanting biological children would prevent them from fostering.
Nearly a third of 18- to 54-year-olds think they don’t have what it takes to foster a child, compared with only 17% of over 54s. But 83% of over 54s think they are too old.
Finding solutions
Many people across the UK believe their lifestyle may hold them back from fostering, whether that’s their age, homeownership, or even the presence of their biological children.
While the societal barriers preventing younger people from becoming foster carers are far too complex and entrenched for any one agency to resolve, we want to gently challenge these attitudes and look for solutions.
The government’s new housebuilding targets are a step towards alleviating the housing shortage that has gripped the nation for decades and we hope a knock-on effect will be that people will feel more able to foster if they have more space in their homes.
But what other innovations do we need to inspire young people to make long term change so recruitment of foster carers is sustainable and meets the needs of children and young people for years to come?
