More children require foster care. More foster carers leave than are recruited. Funding for many aspects of fostering is inadaquet or misplaced.
― There must be a proper review of funding to ensure that there are adequate resources in the system to deliver successful outcomes. In particular the ‘contractor’ model must be examined and an employment model of foster care explored. Funding consistency must be ensured to avoid recruitment competition.
― There must be an audit of the housing provision made available by foster carers to identify gaps in provision.
― There should be unequivocal, legally enforceable prohibition of financial gain being made from foster care. Only local authorities and registered charities should be allowed to operate as providers Create a nationally consistent curricula for training and continuing professional development of foster carers to ensure high-quality provision.
― Flexibility of role may help some foster carers make more use of their skills, but many of the issues around children in care are complex and these must not be addressed by replacing professional staff with partially-trained foster carers.
― Local control of fostering must be protected. From friends to school to access to birth family, children in care are not well served by moving them away from where they grew up. For this and other reasons, control of the system must remain local and be delivered by local authorities.
― There should be a thorough and ongoing analysis in each local authority area of the types and numbers of foster carers required to meet needs within local communities, along with the additional staffing requirements required to support them. That must mean enough social work contact time with foster children. Staffing should be at a level which will enable relationship-based practice which will require caseloads to be set at manageable levels. That means a reversal to cuts in core social work capacity in local authorities.