Charity chief: foster carer quality must improve

Speaking to CYP Now ahead of the launch of a Who Cares? Trust report that recommends an overhaul of the care system, Natasha Finlayson called for councils to do more to develop foster carers’ skills and recruit better quality carers.

She said: “The quality of foster care is the most important issue for the care system.

“Because we don’t have enough [carers] you find fostering panels approving people that perhaps aren’t quite up to it; people doing it for the money or who are not that great at it get through.”

Finlayson said the pressure on local authorities to retain carers – there is an estimated shortfall of 9,000 foster carers nationally – means sometimes looked-after children are not placed with people who best meet their needs.

“I would struggle to be a foster carer because these are children who have experienced trauma and it comes through in lots of different ways that affect learning and behaviour, and mental and emotional health,” she said, adding that more emphasis needs to be placed on better training for carers.

“Most foster carers want more training to understand the theory of some of that stuff, and also on strategies and techniques to deal with it.”

She also called for training methods used in specialist fostering programmes, such as multidimensional treatment foster care, to be incorporated into everyday fostering services.

“The intensive level of the training and support, such as access to a 24-hour helpline, really makes a difference to the success of the placement,” she added. “Our sense is that foster carers are really looking for more of that.”

Improving training and support for foster carers, kinship carers and key workers is a key recommendation of the trust’s Principles of Care report. If carers are unable to meet the needs of children, placements are more likely to break down, it says.
 
In addition, there needs to be better matching of looked-after children to care placements with more emphasis placed on giving children greater choice and say over where a placement is and who it is with.

The report, the culmination of two years of research and consultation, puts forward ideas for creating a care system that is set up to provide looked-after children with a good-quality childhood and helps heal the trauma associated with not being able to live with your birth family.

It also highlights the need for a more stable children’s social care workforce and the importance of a child forming strong attachments with their social worker. It calls for councils to ensure social workers have the right support, training and supervision for practitioners to remain in post longer and to have the ability to play a greater role in the lives of looked-after children.