MacAlister promises ‘major changes’ to fostering system

Children’s minister Josh MacAlister has promised “major changes” to England’s fostering system, backed by “tens of millions of pounds” in funding.

He said he would be soon be bringing forward “a comprehensive set of measures” to “boost the numbers of foster carers and the types of foster care that children need”, adding that it was a “personal priority” for him as minister.

MacAlister’s comments, made in a parliamentary debate last week, followed his recent call for children in care to have a choice of where and with whom they lived, enabled by a surge in foster care recruitment.

Declining number of foster families

This would entail a complete reversal of the decline in the number of mainstream foster care households seen in recent years, with Ofsted figures showing a 10% drop from 2021-24, when there were 33,745 approved families.

Last week’s parliamentary debate was focused on the education select committee’s recent report on children’s social care, which, quoting Fostering Network figures, said England had a shortage of 6,500 fostering families.

It called on the Department for Education (DfE) to produce a national fostering strategy, consult on a national register of carers – to improve matching and raise carer status – and review allowance levels.

In response to the report, the DfE did not comment on the call for a fostering strategy and said it was weighing up the costs and benefits of a register.

In 2023-24, councils and independent fostering agencies (IFAs) recruited 3,785 fostering households who were still active at the end of the year, down from 4,630 in 2019-20.

Actions to boost fostering recruitment and retention

Government policy to tackle this, under Labour and its Conservative predecessor, has been focused on the rollout of regional fostering recruitment hubs, which provide an information and support service to help prospective carers from their initial enquiry to making an application.

The DfE has provided £15m this year to complete their rollout across all local authorities.

At the same time, to boost retention, it has sought to expand the use of the ‘Mockingbird model’, developed by the Fostering Network in the UK, under which “constellations” of fostering households provide mutual support to one another, led by an experienced carer who provides a ‘hub home’ for the others.

A 2020 evaluation of the scheme for the DfE found that households who participated in Mockingbird were 82% less likely to deregister than households who did not.

Read the full news story here