On Wednesday 4 February, the Department for Education (DfE) published their long awaited plan for fostering in England alongside a consultation and call for evidence. “Renewing fostering: homes for 10,000 more children” set an ambitious goal to expand foster homes for 10,000 more children by 2029 alongside an action plan detailing how they want it to be achieved.
What’s in the action plan?
National scale actions to expand fostering
- Launch a national recruitment campaign
- Provide funding for home improvements, enabling experienced foster carers to increase the number of rooms in their home
- Introduce new digital tools to streamline the application and assessment process
Purposeful regional collaboration
- Expanding recruitment hubs to encompass the whole approval process
- Establishing Regional Care Cooperatives in every region in England
Innovation that improves outcomes for children
- An innovation programme will be introduced to scale new models of foster care that increase placement stability and prevent needs from escalating
New support for carers
- Developing an enhanced support and training offer for foster carers that includes clearer training on the allegations process
- Undertaking a study of foster carer finances to better understand financial inconsistencies across regions
A simpler rulebook that puts trusted relationships first
Following a consultation, updates will be made to national standards and guidance, including :
- New recruitment standards to set clearer expectations on effectiveness & timeliness of assessment of carers
- Clearer expectations on foster carer peer networks
- A stronger position on delegated authority / decision making for foster carers
- Promoting relationships with a child’s trusted adults
Promoting kinship foster care - Fewer more meaningful relationships
Consultation proposals
Along with the action plan DfE has launched a consultation on the removal of panels from the approval process and updating allegations guidance.
Proposal 1: Amending the role of fostering panels and strengthening quality assurance standards within the assessment process
This includes the removal of the requirement for fostering panels to make recommendations for initial approval of foster carers and for the first-year annual review.
Instead, these decisions would be made by the Agency Decision Maker in the fostering service with a clear line of accountability and quality assurance expectations.
Proposal 2: Improving the handling of allegations and standards of care
Improving support for children and foster carers who are experiencing an allegation including:
- Decisions to remove a child made carefully, using a holistic risk assessment and signed off by a senior safeguarding lead, with the child’s views prioritised
- Continued wellbeing-focused support from supervising social workers
Making the allegations process fairer and more transparent including:
- Foster carers being able to retain their fee throughout investigations
- Mandatory training on the allegations process for fostering families
- Early written information about the allegation from the designated person, plus weekly updates
The consultation closes on 17 March.
You can respond directly here or see below to input into our response.
Call for evidence
DfE also launched a call for evidence that is looking for evidence on the following topics:
- Financial transparency
- A foster care register
- Amending the fostering limit
- DBS checks and vetting for prospective foster carers
- Consistency in handling of allegations for those inside and outside of the care system
- Innovation
- Removing barriers for kinship care
The deadline for this submission is also 17 March.
You can respond directly to the call for evidence here or see below to feed into our response.
The Fostering Network’s view
The fostering plan is a long, overdue step forward and we’re really pleased to see the consideration of a register for foster carers which we’ve long campaigned for. However, we are disappointed by the lack of focus on foster carer retention, particularly financial support, which is essential if we are to keep retaining more foster carers than we are losing.
You can read our full press release here.
Feed into our response
We want to hear your views on the proposals set out in the action plan, and include these in our response.
To support this we are hosting four focus group sessions that will be attended by DfE so that these views can also feed directly into their consultation.
- Session 1 – Panels – Tuesday 3 March, 10am-12pm
- Session 2 – Allegations – Tuesday 3 March, 1pm-3pm
- Session 3 – Standards and Guidance – Wednesday 4 March, 10am-12pm
- Session 4 – Foster carer register – Monday 9 March, 12pm-2pm
Sign up for session here.
Respond to our survey
To maximise engagement, we have had to limit the number of spaces to this event. Therefore, if you are unable to attend the sessions you can still let us know your thoughts through our survey.
