Foster carers reconsider role amid cost-of-living crisis

Sarah Anderson, the founder of FosterWiki – an information service for foster carers – has warned that the system will be 26,000 foster carers short by 2026 “if nothing is done to address this serious problem”.

The survey of 1,064 foster carers found that 54 per cent had considered resigning due to soaring living costs.

Some 89 per cent said they are having to cut back on money spent on children, impacting on food, heating, travel and activities, and two-and-a-half per cent had resorted to food banks.

• Improving foster carer recruitment

• Councils turn to inducements to attract scarce fostering families

Meanwhile, 59 per cent of foster carers said their fostering allowance and expenses did not meet the full costs of looking after their fostered child.

Despite the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on foster carers, almost nine in 10 reported that they have had no financial support at all from their local authority or foster agency.

Just six per cent said they had received a one-off payment and five per cent reported getting a permanent increase in their child’s allowance.

One carer told FosterWiki that while they had received a £4-per-week increase for their children, their bills had risen to £50 per week.

Another said they were “considering quitting” fostering after 12 years due to receiving no extra financial support. “It’s not financially viable,” they said.

Anderson said: “Children are already bounced around the system with multiple placements re-traumatising them and creating long-lasting mental health issues and affecting their future outcomes, which are already dire.

“I will be demanding a response from the government and ministers to this untenable situation, our children deserve more and we need to offer immediate financial support to those caring for them, before an already beleaguered fostering system falls into irreversible free fall.”

Meanwhile, What Works for Children’s Social Care (WWCSC) is launching two new research projects, supported by funding from the government’s Evaluation Accelerator Fund.

The funding will be used to research strategies to support kinship carers and special guardians, and to evaluate the effectiveness of the "Staying Close" residential care programme to support care leavers.

Aoife O’Higgins, director of research at WWCSC said: “The ‘cliff-edge’ that many care leavers report experiencing when they leave care, in terms of the sudden loss of support and lack of preparation for living independently, must be addressed so young people are supported in their transition to independent living as an adult. Staying Close is one potential way of providing that support, and through research we can evaluate what works to have the best possible outcomes for children and young people, and learn how to implement the programme in the best way possible. 

“Similarly, kinship care and special guardianship orders allow children to build long-lasting, loving familial relationships. Our research will help the sector understand whether different interventions and strategies increase the number of kinship carers and special guardians and what impact this has on children’s outcomes.”