The future of foster care

Three out of every four children in the care system is in foster care. As the population of looked-after children continues to rise, it will fall to the fostering system to accommodate the majority of that growth. According to the Fostering Network, more than 9,000 new foster families will be needed this year alone.

However, the government has placed an overwhelming emphasis on boosting the numbers of children who are adopted in each local area. This has raised concerns about a “hierarchy” of alternatives to children living with birth families, in which adoption is placed firmly at the top. Foster carers want a clear vision from the government to enable them to provide the best possible support. The number of children they collectively nurture and protect greatly outnumbers those who are adopted, they argue, so it is vital their concerns do not play second fiddle.

Children’s minister Edward Timpson – brought up with more than 80 fostered children himself – has written to all carers, pledging “to do more over the coming year” in six areas. So what exactly should this entail?

1. Recruitment and retention
Quite apart from the rise in the number of looked-after children, an aging foster care workforce is exacerbating an already chronic shortage of carers.

The Department for Education’s latest annual figures, up to the end of last March, show a 13 per cent rise in the population of children in care since March 2011, which now stands at 67,050.

The Fostering Network estimates that 13 per cent of foster carers retire or leave each year. It says 9,000 must be recruited during 2013 to ensure children can live with carers who meet their needs, so they are not inappropriately placed away from their area, or in a children’s home.

Local recruitment drives take place, but these are often short, sharp campaigns run by councils and agencies. Recruitment needs to be a year-round activity. According to David Oldham, chief executive of Core Assets Fostering, most potential carers do not approach an agency or council until they have been exposed to five to six pieces of promotion. Greater focus on online promotion would help reach more under-35s, the least represented group among carers, he adds.

Some local areas target their campaigns at certain groups. Staffordshire Council, for instance, is searching for “resilience foster carers” to address a shortfall in carers for vulnerable teenagers. It is targeting residential care workers and ex-police or prison officers with experience of working with young people with emotional and behavioural difficulties. Involving existing foster carers can also be effective in recruiting. The Rees Centre For Research in Fostering and Education, established a year ago at the University of Oxford, says word-of-mouth promotion from carers is the main spur in convincing other people to foster.

But national investment to boost numbers has not been forthcoming. Education Secretary Michael Gove redirected £150m of funding for early intervention to help councils recruit more adopters this year and speed up the adoption process. By contrast, the government has pledged just £775,000 to support local foster care recruitment between April 2013 and April 2015. This includes one-to-one support for 25 councils that are struggling, and recruitment strategy support for up to two to three council groups or fostering providers. A further £673,000 is earmarked for the Fostering Network’s Fosterline advice phone service and the organisation’s annual Fostering Fortnight.

A DfE spokeswoman insists the government’s adoption reform agenda does not mean fostering services “have taken a back seat.” But Robert Tapsfield, chief executive of the Fostering Network, says: “Most children in care neither need or ever will be adopted. The government should invest a similar level of time and resources in improving foster care as it is in adoption.”

2. Assessment and approval
Prospective foster carers undergo an assessment and approval process lasting four to six months on average. Experts believe such a timescale is needed to give potential carers time to reflect on the challenge they are taking on, and to allow agencies to fully vet them. But some still face unnecessary delays.

The Fostering Network wants more research carried out to help councils and agencies become more efficient at spotting the characteristics of a successful foster carer. Broadly speaking, carers need to be authoritative parents who can reflect on their decisions, be able to place care for children at the heart of family life and have the resilience to overcome challenges. The Rees Centre is analysing global research into fostering assessment methods, with the findings available later this year.

To minimise delays and dropouts, councils and agencies must ensure clear, strong communication with prospective carers during the assessment process. “People don’t like to be left in an information vacuum – they want to know where their position is in the process,” says Oldham. Councils could also work better with each other and with fostering agencies to jointly co-ordinate assessments, reducing costs and improving efficiencies in the process.

Meanwhile, greater flexibility in commissioning could help create a better match between carer and child. At present, many councils use a roster of fostering agencies. Professor Judy Sebba, director of the Rees Centre, says: “This can be problematic as you are limiting your supply to just those agencies, when there could be others in the area not on the roster who could supply beds.”

The DfE is consulting with the foster care sector to look at making the approval and assessment process clearer, as part of its ongoing Improving Fostering Services consultation, set up last July.

3. Delegation of authority
Timpson’s predecessor Tim Loughton championed an increase in the authority foster carers have over the day-to-day lives of children. The Statutory Framework For Fostering Services, introduced in April 2011, says decisions such as a child having a haircut and attending a school trip, should be delegated wherever possible. Delegated authority is a central theme of the Foster Carers’ Charter, also issued in 2011, and the government funded a good practice guide on the issue, produced by the Fostering Network.

Yet many councils still refuse to delegate. Even the DfE concedes: “We know this is still not happening in some areas.”

A Fostering Network survey of 1,035 foster carers last summer found 17 per cent are still unable to make decisions about haircuts and one in five are not allowed to make decisions about day trips at school. A third were unable to sanction a sleepover and carers said getting permission forms signed by social workers could take weeks.

These issues can lead to children in care feeling increasingly isolated and becoming vulnerable to bullying. Social care inspectors should further scrutinise councils’ ability to effectively delegate authority during inspections, says the charity, and children’s social workers must be supported to fully appreciate the importance of delegated authority.

“If carers have to wait for permission for simple day-to-day activities, it builds up frustration,” says Sebba. The Association of Directors of Children’s Services adds that councils have no excuse not to delegate authority to foster carers unless for specific reasons such as cultural or religious issues.

The DfE has pledged to publish revised statutory guidance around delegated authority in the spring. This will require councils to have a policy on delegation and make it clearer that day-to-day decisions should be delegated to carers wherever possible.

4. Support for when children are returning home from care
A child’s move from foster care back to their birth family, or leaving care, can be emotionally devastating for foster carers and their family, especially when a long-term placement ends. Of the 7,350 children who left care in the year ending March 2012, 37 per cent returned to their family or relatives. Clear care plans can ease the situation for looked-after children, foster carers and, in particular, the two-thirds of foster carers that have dependent children.

The DfE’s national minimum standards for fostering, which came into force in 2011, specify that care plans should detail the support available to foster carers when a child moves on. But the level of support on offer is varied. Some areas provide outreach support through fostering agencies and children’s social care, focused on carers’ emotional wellbeing during and after a child is in their care. But this is far from universal.

Peer support groups can also help carers and their families deal with this transition. “We have a team parenting approach, which looks at the holistic needs of the child, the team of professionals around them, the fostering family and their children,” says Core Assets’ Oldham. “Rather than just taking a child from the family, you have to work with all the parties involved and see what support is needed.”

5. Status, security and stability of long-term foster care
The children’s care sector is blighted by placement instability. Nearly one in four looked-after children experiences two placements a year and a tenth have three or more placements, according to DfE data. A placement breakdown can be especially devastating to a child’s education and career prospects if it happens during exam time.

Emergency respite can help to give carers and children a temporary break to avoid tension escalating. The Mockingbird Family Model, pioneered in the US, gives a carer within the local foster care community emergency respite care duties.

The Rees Centre’s Sebba says that such an approach should be replicated here: “Because they are local and part of an established group of carers, the child can far more easily return home.”

To improve foster carers’ status, the Fostering Network wants to see a rise in fees. Although money is not the main driver for people to foster, low fees can demotivate them and make long-term fostering difficult, as carers struggle to balance employment and fostering.  According to the Childhood Wellbeing Research Centre, seven out of 10 carers say money figured very low in their decision to foster, but more than a third said they had considered quitting fostering due to low fees. A national minimum allowance for foster carers is in place (see box), but additional fees to cover loss of income or care for children with complex needs are piecemeal and varied.

Tapsfield believes councils need to recognise that foster care “needs to come with a level of fee that is comparable with other members of the children’s workforce”, especially as many foster carers are unable to work full-time to meet their fostering obligations. This would also recognise the professionalism and breadth of skills required of a foster carer and increase their status.

The DfE has pledged to fund further research into the impact of fees on recruiting foster carers, but says reviewing and setting fee levels is up to local areas.

6. Training and support for foster carers and social workers
Foster carers have to complete training that meets the Training, Support and Development Standards for Foster Care within the first 12 months of approval as a carer. The set of standards was launched by the now defunct Children’s Workforce Development Council, and since 2012 has been managed by the DfE. It covers issues such as child development, child protection, communication skills and dealing with challenging behaviour.

The 12-session Fostering Changes Programme, developed at London’s Maudsley Hospital in 1999, is among the most widely used foster care training by councils, which covers the skills to address these issues. Another is the Keeping Foster and Kinship Parents Trained and Supported (Keep) programme, aimed at foster carers of children aged between five and 12 with behavioural difficulties. Such courses equip carers to support children’s education, liaise with social workers and understand therapy.

But council funding cuts make it harder for carers to access such training. Jacqui Lawrence, fostering development consultant at the British Association for Adoption and Fostering, says: “When there are cuts, the first thing that goes is the training budget.” Carers wishing to specialise and develop skills such as caring for children with specific disabilities, or dealing with severe trauma, can struggle to access specialist training. BAAF says cuts are also affecting training for social workers in understanding the role of foster carers, something the Fostering Network wants to see included in social workers’ entry-level training.  Joint training, so that foster carers and social workers can better understand each other, share experiences and see each other as equal professionals, needs to be more widespread, it says, as should involvement of care leavers in developing training.

BAAF works with a care leaver consultant on training courses to help cover matters including understanding gang life and communicating with victims of severe neglect.

Fostering agencies must also ensure carers are supported with training. Core Assets Fostering runs two six-week programmes on attachment theory and dealing with challenging behaviour. Indeed, peer support, through group meetings, online forums and buddying schemes, can provide carers with valuable emotional support and a useful source of information, the Rees Centre has found.

But it warns that groups need to be carefully managed by skilled co-ordinators to avoid meetings becoming gossip sessions dominated by criticism of social workers. The centre’s research also recommends that groups have a conditional confidentiality agreement in place, setting out rules around information that cannot be passed on outside the group. And, as Sebba points out: “This needs to stipulate that any revelation of a child being harmed by a carer will be reported.”


FOSTER CARE – IN NUMBERS