Fostering partnership to boost children's life chances
Derren Hayes
Tuesday, May 25, 2021
Midlands councils work with independent fostering provider to step down children from residential to foster care.
- Pilot scheme is being funded by government and social investor which will be repaid based on achieved outcomes
- Initial placements have been successful so far with outcomes to be assessed after two years
ACTION
With council care budgets severely stretched and children's home places in short supply, initiatives have been developed in recent years to move young people from residential to foster care. While not appropriate for every child, such “step down” arrangements tend to be cheaper while educational outcomes for children in foster are better, making them attractive to councils.
This was the situation facing Staffordshire County Council last year. It had identified a small group of adolescents in residential care who social workers thought would benefit from living in a family setting but whose challenging behaviour meant most foster carers would struggle to cope with them. Looking for an alternative option, children's services commissioners at the council spotted an opportunity to trial a new approach.
Staffordshire joined forces with Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council to submit a bid to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport's Life Chances Fund to establish a four-year pilot to identify independent foster carers across England who had the right skills to take on adolescents through step-down arrangements. The project, called the Big Fostering Partnership, was awarded £2.38m through the fund which will contribute to pay for 92 children aged seven to 16 across both boroughs to be placed with foster carers provided by National Fostering Group (NFG).
“My commissioning team was looking to do something different and the government funding offered an opportunity to do that,” says Helen Riley, deputy chief executive and director for families and communities at Staffordshire County Council. “The outcomes-based commissioning model is similar to intensive fostering projects.”
A key difference is that the money for the project is being provided by Big Issue Invest, the social investment arm of the Big Issue Group, with the investor being paid dividends when specific outcomes are achieved.
“This will deliver better outcomes for young people without impacting on our placement budget,” Riley explains.
Through the partnership, there is no commitment in terms of money for placements, but there is an understanding the councils will consider appropriate placements through it.
There are regular meetings with the councils, partnership board and NFG to ensure the right children are identified. The fostering provider then identifies foster carers or looks to recruit carers where there are gaps. Meetings are held with the residential provider and foster carers to ensure that all parties are in agreement if and when placements should occur.
This will be determined by care plans to ensure they are appropriate and suitable, although Riley says it takes around six weeks to identify a suitable placement and a further six to eight weeks to finalise the transition.
Payment system
Once an appropriate foster carer has been identified, a transition plan is put in place and only when a young person moves into the foster family the council pays the first outcome payment. Under the project, the council pays a fee of roughly 50 per cent of the cost of the placement for each week the young person remains with the foster family, with Big Issue Invest paying the rest. The council makes further outcomes payments at regular intervals for up to two years based on the success of the fostering arrangement. After two years, the young person will remain with the foster carers on the council's existing arrangements for commissioning foster care until they reach independence.
“If the outcomes are successful and the placement stable we can claim 19 per cent of the cost, via government funding,” Riley explains. There are milestones during the two years to check that progress is on the right track, including that the child is showing signs of being stable in education.
Riley says that the funding through the scheme “gives us the time to work with the residential placement and foster carer to ensure the transition process goes well”.
IMPACT
The project placed the first children with foster carers last autumn and, while only a handful of placements have been made, so far none have broken down.
Riley says the placements could be across England but the aim is to find foster carers as close to the local area as possible. She adds that residential care providers have supported the project as it aims to find the most appropriate setting for children to live and there is a “constant pipeline” of children for residential placements.
“The care market isn't working for all young people,” Riley says. “Residential care can be a poor answer for some, as they can achieve worse outcomes compared with foster and kinship care.”
If the concept is proved to work, Riley hopes it could become a permanent fixture.
“If we can demonstrate it makes a difference to the young people and delivers financial savings, then I'd go and talk to my council members [about extending it],” she says. “The council is investing an extra £8m over four years in children's services – they like a really clear business case.”