Performance: Percentage of children in the same placement for at least two years or placed for adoption in the year ending 31 March
Newcastle City Council's Foster a Future campaign was last year recognised at the Association of Social Care Communicators' awards, winning in the best campaign category.
This media drive to encourage more potential foster carers to come forward is one of the initiatives that the council has used to raise the percentage of children in care remaining in a stable placement or placed for adoption.
Since 2005, the council has seen an improvement in these figures, resulting in 65 per cent of looked-after children remaining in the same placement for two years or more in 2008. But this followed a sharp drop in performance between 2004 and 2005, when the figure fell from 67 per cent to 56 per cent.
Karen Simmons, acting head of looked-after-children, says: "The Foster a Future campaign has been a tremendous success in terms of getting people interested in fostering, especially people who would never have considered it before, and dispelling some of the misconceptions about fostering. Stable placements mean better outcomes for looked-after children. "
As part of the campaign to recruit a wider pool of foster carers, the council introduced a new support package. This included up to £400 a week in allowances per child. Based on the concept of Tupperware parties, existing foster carers held events in their own homes, rather than asking people interested in fostering to the local civic centre. The council was also one of the sponsors for the Christmas light switch-on, which helped to raise the profile of fostering in the city.
