Care News: £25m boost to foster care support and recruitment from 2026-28

By Mithran Samuel on April 8, 2025

Money designed to recruit 400 more foster families and improve peer support carers, as government seeks to counter decline in number of mainstream fostering households.

The government has committed £25m to boosting foster care recruitment and support in England from 2026-28.

The money was announced in the government’s spring statement last month, when the Treasury said it would be used to recruit a further 400 fostering households.

Further details were provided last week by children’s minister Janet Daby, in response to a written parliamentary question from Liberal Democrat MP Tom Gordon.

Daby said the money would be available over two years – 2026-27 and 2027-28 – and was also designed to fund peer to peer support for foster carers, as well as bolster recruitment.

The funding builds on £36m allocated from 2023-25 by the previous government and £15m for 2025-26 provided by the current administration to tackle shortages in England’s fostering capacity. There was a 10% drop from 2021-24 in the number of mainstream foster carers – a category that excludes kinship carers approved to look after specific children.

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