The Government are seeking views on the revised fostering standards and guidance. 


Why your views matter
The Department for Education is seeking views from: 

• anyone working in fostering or related areas 
• people with lived experience of fostering 

The national fostering standards and guidance have been revised to simplify and update what fostering services should do. 

The Government are consulting on proposed changes to the standards and guidance. This is to gather views on whether they are clear and effective in improving outcomes for children and young people.  

Share your views here.

Bridget Phillipson succeeded as education secretary by Labour's deputy leader, who will assume responsibility for the government's children's social care reform agenda.

Lucy Powell has taken responsibility for children's social care after being appointed education secretary in Andy Burnham's new government.

The Labour deputy leader succeeds Bridget Phillipson, who remains in the cabinet as minister for women and equalities, a brief she already held.

Following her appointment, Powell posted on X: "Absolutely thrilled the be appointed education secretary. For me there’s no more important job for any government than making sure young people have the best education, the best opportunities and the best future they can. Lots to do and I look forward to getting started."

Her appointment means she will be charged with implementing the government's children's social care reform agenda, which includes:

• Reorganising children's services to improve support for families, sharpen the quality of child protection practice and involve family networks more in decision making.
• Overhauling the fostering system in order to create 10,000 more places by 2029.
• Vesting responsibility for care placements in regional care co-operatives, in order to improve the supply and quality of care for looked-after children.
• Enhancing support for care leavers, and supporting care experienced people to build lasting and loving relationships.

Click here to read the full article.

​With the government keen for young people to establish strong relationships with trusted adults when they leave care, Donna Molloy from what works centre, Foundations, explains what current support programmes help deliver this and the evidence behind them.

The announcement that the government will support care-experienced children and young people to connect with the trusted, important adults in their lives is a crucial step forward in ensuring more can build the lifelong support networks we all need to thrive.

Everyone deserves to grow up with safe, stable, and nurturing relationships. Whether that’s from a parent, a mentor, a neighbour, a teacher – they all make up the tapestry of a support network that enriches a child’s life and offers them guidance as they enter adulthood.

But while this is something many of us can so easily take for granted, care-experienced children and young people have fewer opportunities to form these long-lasting connections. At the same time, they are more likely to experience significant challenges in their lives, including higher rates of unemployment, mental health issues, and homelessness. These are often compounded by the lack of a stable, trusted network as they take their first steps into adulthood and statutory support decreases.

Click here to read the full article.

Sector bodies give broad welcome to government drive to increase foster care place numbers by 10,000, but Article 39 and BASW sound warning over plans to cut "bureaucracy", including by reducing use of fostering panels.

The government's drive to cut "bureaucracy" in reforming England's fostering system has sparked concerns that the changes will weaken safeguards for children.

Both the British Association of Social Workers (BASW) and children's rights charity Article 39 raised the issue, after the Department for Education (DfE) said it wanted to simplify rules around fostering as part of its plan to increase place numbers by 10,000 by 2029.

Article 39 particularly highlighted the DfE's proposal to remove fostering panels from the process of approving carers and carrying out their first review, warning that it risked weakening scrutiny of decisions.

The £88m action plan, which is designed to ensure many more children are looked after in foster families by reversing years of decline in the number of carers, was broadly welcomed by sector bodies.

However, sector charity The Fostering Network criticised the DfE's failure to pledge improved financial support for carers, while the Nationwide Association of Fostering Providers urged greater involvement of independent fostering agencies (IFAs) in delivering on the government's ambitions.

Click here to read the full article.

Nearly 55,000 children in England live with foster carers, and despite a recent fall in the number of children in care, pressure on the system remains intense. Rising costs and the growing role of private providers in residential care and foster placements have exposed deep weaknesses, yet reform has lagged behind the crisis in children’s homes. Only now have ministers set out plans to reshape fostering. The test is whether their plan fixes the system, or papers over its cracks.

The main thrust of a new policy paper from the Department for Education is that more foster carers are needed to meet a target of 10,000 additional non-profit places by 2029. The children’s minister, Josh MacAlister, who previously led a review of the sector under the Tories, likened the plan to the Homes for Ukraine scheme, which saw nearly 74,000 people volunteer to host refugees fleeing the war. A national recruitment campaign can be expected soon. With around a third of all current carers aged over 60, it makes sense to try to attract new people to their ranks.

But even the most experienced foster carers do not operate alone. And the rest of the proposals deal with the support systems that surround them. One is for stronger collaboration between councils. Another is for grants so that experienced foster carers can extend or refit their homes to accommodate extra children, potentially including siblings of those already there. A third concerns specialist placements for young people on remand, as an alternative to custody.

Click here to read the full article.

The government has unveiled plans for the biggest shake up of fostering in a generation. Here, sector leaders react to the proposals and highlight their potential benefits and pitfalls.

Renewing Fostering, the Department for Education’s new strategy for reversing the decline in the number of foster carers sets out at the start the government’s belief that all children unable to live at home with their parents “should be able to benefit from a loving foster home while growing up close to their extended family, friends, school, and wider community”.

To achieve this, it sets a target to recruit an additional 10,000 local authority and third sector foster carers by 2029 through a set of reforms across five key areas: recruitment practices, sourcing placements, support services, standards and regulations, and freedoms to innovate. The ambition has been widely welcomed but some sector organisations are concerned some of the proposals may go too far – while others say more radical action in some areas is needed.

Click here to read the full article.

Fostering rules will be relaxed and red tape cut to create 10,000 new places for vulnerable children in England, the government says.

It will become easier for full-time workers to become foster carers under the plans and clearer guidelines are being drawn up to encourage people from diverse backgrounds to get involved.

The government says more young people are ending up in children's homes rather than being placed with foster families because of a "critical shortage" of carers.

It says an additional £88m will help overhaul the fostering system.

Click here to read the full article

​Minister tells sector leaders that rollout of regional commissioning will be sped up and it will become future model for care system, replacing local authority-based purchasing and provision.

Regional care co-operatives (RCCs) are to take responsibility for children's placements across England from individual local authorities, Josh MacAlister has said.

The children's minister told sector leaders that the government would speed up the rollout of RCCs and saw them as "the future basis for creating homes for children in care", in a speech last week.

RCCs were conceived of by MacAlister in his 2021-22 Independent Review of Children's Social Care as a response to the insufficiency of appropriate local placements for looked-after children. They then became part of the Conservatives' children's social care reform agenda, from 2023-24, and were subsequently taken up by the current Labour government on its election last year.

Click here to read the full article from Community Care 

Children's minister pledges comprehensive measures to reverse decline in foster care recruitment, after declaring ambition to give children choice over placements.

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.

Click here to read the full article 

A “landmark” study has been launched to inform the design of future mental health support for care-experienced children and young people.

The 18-month ‘Collage’ project will explore the existing barriers and resources for those aged 13 to 25 seeking help for mental health problems, which academics say is "essential to designing support that truly meets their needs".

The project is co-produced with children and young people “as partners in shaping the research” as well as being participants, the researchers state.

The study, funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research Programme for Social Care, will also look in-depth at the experience of those who are LGBTQ+, racially minoritised, neuro divergent, or disabled. 

With around one in three young people with diagnosable mental health conditions accessing services – exacerbated by barriers like instability, disrupted relationships, and gaps in care – the research will fill a “critical gap” in understanding, according to academics.

Click here to read the full article