Unlike the fleeting annoyance at the end of your food shop, the stakes are of course so much higher if foster carers aren't available in the numbers needed to care for children at risk. What can we learn from the past two decades to help bring an end to this long-running issue?
This year marks ten years since the publication of the first Benchmark report into fostering services in England. It gave local council fostering services valuable insights into foster carer recruitment nationally and the opportunity to compare notes with their peers.
Comparing the figures, little has changed. In 2013, 11% of enquiries became approved foster carers, compared to today’s 10%. The journey from first enquiry to approval took just over 9 months, in comparison to around 8 months nowadays. Thirteen per cent of foster carers left the workforce in 2013, the same percentage as in 2021-2022.
The original Benchmark report lauded foster carers as ‘the lifeblood for all fostering services’ and explored their motivations for taking on the role through the Why Foster Carers Care report (2013). The research identified most carers had a pioneer value set, possessing a strong sense of right and wrong and the belief in whatever happens, they will manage.
Fast forward to 2023, the need for foster carers has never been greater. A 2021 analysis by think-tank the Social Market Foundation predicts a shortage of 25,000 carers in England by 2026.
Councils struggle to fund marketing to recruit in sufficient numbers. There are calls for a national recruitment drive for new foster carers and cautions from current foster carers that retention is equally important.
In fact, over half of foster carers are on the verge of quitting due to the cost-of-living crisis. The care system has become overly reliant on the goodwill of foster carers. Foster carers’ belief in their ability to manage - whatever happens - is being tested to the limit.
As far back as the 1990s, foster carers were in short supply. Local authorities turned to independent fostering agencies (IFAs) to place more complex cases. As a result, IFAs grew in number and size, and so did the strained, co-dependent relationship between public and private providers.
Josh MacAlister wasn’t exaggerating when he described the care system as “a 30-year-old tower of Jenga held together with Sellotape” in his recent independent review.
In the same review, MacAlister quite rightly recognised foster carers as ‘the bedrock of the social care system’. However, his recommendations and the subsequent Government response fail to address increasing financial pressures on foster carers or focus on their status in the team around the child for more power to advocate for them.