News Insight: Social Care - Hidden hordes of private fosterers

Professionals were due to gather in London this week for a British Association for Adoption & Fostering (BAAF) conference on private fostering. It follows the first England-wide campaign, Somebody Else's Child, to raise awareness of private fostering.

Over the past month, councils have been busy publicising the need for parents and professionals to let local authorities know when a child is cared for by someone other than a parent or close relative for more than 28 days consecutively.

It's now nearly four years since the Children (Private Arrangements for Fostering) Regulations 2005 came into force. But notification rates remain stubbornly low. The latest figures show that at 31 March 2008, 1,330 children were privately fostered - a small increase on the 2005 figures.

Under-estimated figures

But experts agree this is a massive under-estimate of the true number - the last official estimate made by the Department of Health in 2001 put the figure at around 10,000 children. So why is this? And does it mean child abuse is being missed?

Andrew Christie, director of children's services at Hammersmith and Fulham Council, says that despite considerable efforts there is still a general lack of knowledge around this area.

"The definition of private fostering is not necessarily straightforward. Many people who are under these arrangements don't want to let us know because they are anxious of what will happen after. I think with the work we are doing we can hope for an incremental increase in these numbers but it will be a long, slow haul," he says.

Victoria Climbie

Significantly, Victoria Climbie was privately fostered by her great aunt, who killed her. But David Holmes, chief executive of the BAAF, says: "We are talking about such a wide variety of children, some of whom are living very happy lives, but others who are vulnerable and at risk by being under the radar. It is important that we know where these children are and do not allow them to remain invisible."

Children can be privately fostered for a number of reasons, and include those who are sent from other countries to study or have a better quality of life in Britain.

Debbie Ariyo, executive director of Africans Unite Against Child Abuse, says this can be one of the difficulties for local authorities. "For some communities, even if the child is not closely related to them, they will treat them as their own child."

Suspicion and fear also surround the idea of "giving yourself up" according to Ariyo, with some private fosterers living in the country illegally and others who are simply scared of the authorities. "We shouldn't assume the child is in danger," she says. "But in cases where they are we have to encourage people to go to the authorities."

RISE IN AWARENESS - TOWER HAMLETS

In Tower Hamlets there is an average of two notifications of private fostering arrangements every week. The borough currently has 77 cases, which it will monitor until the arrangements stop or the child reaches the age of 16.

The rise in notifications since the 2005 regulations were put in place is down to a complex combination of methods, according to Sukriti Sen, service manager for family support and protection.

"Since we launched the awareness campaign at the end of January we have seen a lot of people coming forward to ask if they were privately fostering. It shows we have caught the public's attention," she says.

As well as raising awareness through the local newspaper and a poster campaign, a dedicated team go into the different communities across the borough to get the message across.

"We have gone into the Somalian and Bangladeshi community and have also communicated with the Vietnamese population. We use our intranet for our own staff as we have to target the public and professionals," Sen explains.

But the team realises that once people have become aware of private fostering arrangements their responsibility doesn't stop: the council has a strict routine of follow-up visits and panel assessments in place for every case.