Promoting stability has to be care system focus

The survey of 2,263 children and young people aged between four and 18 about their experiences of being in care found 83 per cent felt their life had improved.

Despite the frequent negative coverage across the media about the quality of services for children in care, just six per cent interviewed for the survey - conducted by charity Coram Voice and the University of Bristol - felt life had got worse. With nearly four-fifths of looked-after children living in foster care, the survey findings suggest the fostering system is working well. It should mean the government starts from a position of strength when deciding which recommendations to implement from the recent review of foster care.

In their report, review authors Sir Martin Narey and Mark Owers emphasise the high quality of care delivered by most foster parents, but highlight the need to improve the system for matching children with carers. Recommendations to create a national register of foster carers and develop more regional collaboration among councils and fostering agencies could help widen the pool of available foster carers. This in turn would ensure children's needs are better met and reduce the risk of a foster placement breaking down.

Frequency of placement moves was one of the few areas of concern to emerge from the Our Lives Our Care survey. It highlights the priority looked-after children place on developing stable and enduring relationships with carers and professionals. This need does not disappear when a young person leaves care either, as Mark Riddell, national implementation adviser for care leavers, explains.

Reforms to leaving care services due to come into effect from April require councils to appoint personal advisers to help support care leavers up to 25. Riddell's advice is for councils to appoint advisers before a young person leaves care in an attempt to improve continuity "because young people tell us they want a stable professional relationship".

The foster care review's focus on permanence should, alongside the children's commissioner for England's "stability index" introduced last year, help policymakers develop new ways to minimise care placement moves.

This would go a long way to ensure the vast majority of looked-after children continue to have a positive experience of the care system.

Derren Hayes is editor of Children & Young People Now
derren.hayes@markallengroup.com