Former javelin world record holder Fatima Whitbread has challenged the government to overhaul the care system in England to improve outcomes for children and young people, following a two-day summit last week.

Care experienced people, professionals and sector leaders came together at the One Voice Summit, organised by Whitbread’s charity, Fatima’s UK Campaign, to discuss a draft white paper on reforming the care system.

The document calls for a minister for children in care and care leavers, for being a care leaver to be a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010, providing protection against discrimination, and the extension of the statutory care age up to 25, among 14 action points.

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A specialist course believed to be the first of its kind is being launched for foster carers of children who have suffered traumatic experiences.

The University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich will run the pilot therapeutic fostering programme, aimed at carers in the east of England, but it was hoped the course would be offered nationally in future.

It said 7,000 children were in council care in the region and there was an urgent need to provide foster carers with the skills to respond to complex behaviour.

Dr Mark Gregory, from the UEA, said foster carers' ability to "understand the impact of trauma on children and young people's behaviour is crucial".

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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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Charity calls on government to launch national campaign amid rise in number of children entering care homes

The UK is facing a fostering crisis where retiring carers are not being replaced by younger people, while the number of children entering care homes is rising, a charity has warned.

The decline in foster carers is due to the impact of the pandemic, the costof living crisis, biological children staying at home for longer, spare rooms being used as home offices and changing family situations, Barnardo’s children’s charity said.

Exclusive new polling of more than 4,000 adults for the charity showed that although nearly three quarters (73%) of adults in the UK were worried there are not enough foster carers, only 7% of those who are not currently approved carers would consider fostering a child within the next 10 years.

When asked why they wouldn’t consider becoming foster carers, 82% of over-55s thought they were “too old” – despite this being the average age of a Barnardo’s foster carer – while more than a third of 25- to 44-year-olds said they already have children or want children that are biologically connected to them instead (34%).

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The government’s new policy paper sets out measures to rebalance children’s social care towards early help through boosting family support, curtailing profiteering and creating new provision that better meets needs.

Keeping Families Safe, Helping Children Thrive, the government’s new policy paper for reforming children’s social care, brings together a wide range of measures to improve support for vulnerable children and families covering data sharing, multi-agency working, support for struggling families, residential provision and inspection powers.

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Despite the Care Review recommending the creation of regional care co-operatives (RCCs), the governmental response has been very limited.

The two pathfinders announced are to be local authority-led but are not yet active. There is no evidence that councils can work together to deliver children’s social care. In fact, regional adoption agencies have demonstrated just how dysfunctional such an approach can be.

I proposed a national care service to the Care Review and continue to believe that this is the best way forward. If we created 15 RCCs across England answering to the DfE as an arms-length body then this could be transformative. Sitting above the RCCs could be a flat management structure with five executive directors who would oversee and support three RCCs each, a chief executive, chief financial officer and a marketing and recruitment director.

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​CoramBAAF’s James Bury analyses the government’s plans for kinship care, adoption and fostering.

The Labour government has started to share plans about how it will implement its manifesto commitment to “working with local government, support children in care, including through kinship, foster care, and adoption, as well as strengthening regulation of the children’s social care sector”. Other commitments that impact children’s policy, particularly in relation to education, include changes to school inspections announced and plans to require free breakfast clubs in every primary school. The appointment of a minister for children and families, Janet Daby MP, who has direct social work experience as a former fostering manager is an exciting prospect for the children’s sector.

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​The Department for Education is investing £30mn to increase the reach of a programme to help children in care build and mend relationships with friends, family and trusted adults in their lives such as teachers.

The move has been taken as such relationships often break down when children move into or within the care system.

Through the investment 12 more councils, including those in Brighton and Hove, Salford, Gateshead and Wiltshire, will access the charity Family Rights Group’s Lifelong Links programme.

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New Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has highlighted children’s social care and special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) as key issues she plans to prioritise.

Addressing staff at the Department for Education offices in London over the weekend, Phillipson – who was appointed Secretary of State for Education by Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Friday - said boosting education opportunities would be at the heart of the new Labour government’s strategy for the country.

The MP for Houghton and Sunderland reiterated Labour's general election campaign pledges to boost breakfast club and childcare provision, expand speech and language support, reform Ofsted and improve mental health support for children.

In addition, she flagged up boosting support and outcomes for children with SEND and their families, reforming children’s social care to improve opportunities for the most vulnerable children, and the state of university finances as key issues to address.

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Chair of the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care Josh MacAlister has been elected as a Labour MP as the party celebrates a landslide general election victory.

MacAlister, who chaired the year-long review published in 2022, took the Whitehaven and Workington seat with 53% of the votes.

His new constituency is one of five seats in Cumbria lost by the Conservatives in the Labour Party’s landslide election win.

In his final report to government in 2022, MacAlister made more than 80 recommendations, many of which were taken forward by ministers in the Conservative government’s report Stable Homes Built on Love.

Key recommendations made by MacAlister centred on plans to keep families together when possible in a bid to reduce the numbers of children entering care and implement a shift away from crisis intervention to early help across the children’s social care system.

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