Supporting Long-term Foster Care Placements in the Independent Sector

Authors Mary Beek, Gillian Schofield and Julie Young

Published by Department for Education, October 2016

Match Foster Care, a small independent foster care provider in the West Midlands, was one of the organisations funded by the government's Children's Social Care Innovation Programme, launched in 2013 to encourage innovative approaches to supporting vulnerable children. Match's project aimed to improve outcomes by having the local authority delegate certain statutory duties and related decision making to the provider. Young people would have one social worker, based in Match, who would support and supervise the foster carers as well as taking on the role of local authority child and family social worker. The social worker's duties would therefore include all statutory visits to young clients and organising and representing young people in personal education plan and looked-after children reviews.