CYP Now - Foster care for adolescents with complex needs in Sweden

Laurelle Brown visited Sweden in 2018 to assess how child protection services cater for the needs of older children coming into care and what the UK could learn in terms of support for foster carers.

The recruitment of foster carers in Sweden is managed by a national board, potentially leading to greater economies of scale

CYP Now has teamed up with the Churchill Fellowship to publish a series of articles summarising key findings from studies undertaken worldwide by Churchill Fellows (see below). This is an abridged version of Caring For All: A Comparative Study of Foster Care for Adolescents with “Complex Needs” by Laurelle Brown (2020), principal consultant at KIJIJI. At the time of her trip, Brown was working at Barnet Council.

POLICY AND PRACTICE

It is widely agreed that the UK is experiencing a crisis in relation to foster care provision, with demand for carers exceeding the number available (The Fostering Network, 2019). In the London Borough of Barnet, the rate of increase in the numbers of children in care outpaced that of new foster carers being recruited. This, in addition to more carers being unable or unwilling to care for adolescents, resulted in the authority struggling to find families for young people.

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