One thing that can be said with confidence is that the national Foster care stock take will generate a great deal of heat, but will there be much light? This has been a lengthy process and the findings are yet to be released. The legal claim against Hampshire county council arguing for workers’ rights for foster carers, sparked a debate but divided opinion. This development may be seen by some as long overdue, but in a sense it is a red herring. What is lacking is a big vision for foster care in this new century. It is curious that a curmudgeonly Victorian mindset seems to operate in what is, today, a key aspect of care provision. But on closer inspection, that age –  often referred to as ‘The Age of Reform’ – featured crusading individuals such as Lord Shaftesbury, the British politician, philanthropist and social reformer. Do we have people of his ilk today? If we did, where would foster care provision be now?

It is a paradox that the media channels we have today – available to more or less everyone have not thrown up someone to champion this cause with the zeal of a character like Lord Shaftesbury. When everyone can contribute to a debate, what happens to the quality of the debate itself? The risk is that it becomes diluted, and in an age when fresh and instant news is itself a commodity, this; or perhaps any debate, soon passes from the public consciousness. This is an interesting effect: the speed of news transmission now, tied to a public thirst for novelty and controversy, militates against the slow consideration of a serious issue. Could this be why we are unable to frame properly the issue of foster care. What is true, is that we cannot relate an individual as representing the face of fostering reform, in the way Victorians would have associated Lord Shaftesbury with campaigning for the protection of child chimney sweeps. Without this, the risk is we end upon with what we have – an endless debate. And the result of this is a failure to be bold in terms of policy making and implementation.

A new future for foster care

There is a clear need to think in a radically new way and imagine what the future of foster care should look like. Should it even be called foster care anymore. Perhaps the term itself holds back creative thought – someone marketing a brand understands that it has a life, and at a certain point it either needs a radical overhaul, or has to be reinvented and represented. ‘Foster care’ perhaps has a ring of the past about it and as there is such a strong pull in the direction of therapeutic care, it can be imagined the term may soon become a museum piece. It can be argued that this presents a powerful opportunity to think about child care in ways that provide opportunities – critically in the area of recruitment. Most significantly, it allows us a society to totally rethink how we care for children who are unable to live with their birth families. What are the structures? What is the nomenclature? With imagination, political will and support, we could usher in a whole new paradigm. And we may have no choice; but so much better to be in charge of events rather than being at their mercy, as current thinking suggests we run the risk of being. We have to accept that the current foster care force is shrinking so future outlook is far from encouraging. This at a moment in time when children are being taken into care in record numbers, with around ninety new placements every day.

How people live and work has changed hugely, there are demographic pressures that militate heavily against foster care. Typical foster carers are now in their mid fifties. They are approaching retirement and there is a dramatic shortage of younger families stepping forward to take their place.

There is no doubt that there are some magnificent outcomes achieved by children who have had remarkable foster parents. And this is always to be recognised and celebrated. The issue is that such people are in diminishing supply. This means outcomes cannot be guaranteed and consistent for all children who end up in the care system. So we can adduce that the current system has become something of a lottery – can there be a more compelling reason for its complete overhaul. It is likely we are now at a ‘back to the drawing board’ moment. We shouldn’t have been, but we are where we are. We should remember too, the maxim of there being ‘opportunity within a crisis.’

There are fifty five thousand foster care families in the UK and twenty seven million households. This converts to 0.2% of homes being available to foster a vulnerable child or young person. And this is in a G7 country. The way people are paid – and the foster care system is somewhat arcane featuring a varying mix of fees and allowances – also has an effect. This is why the leading charity, The Fostering Network has been campaigning for payment for foster carers of around £20,000 annually. They understand that perception is key – society cannot extol the virtues of our foster carers and remunerate them in a fashion which undercuts the value of such positive messages. Put simply, would a high court judge feel comfortable if paid on an hourly rate? Doubtful. The way people think about themselves is shaped by the society they live in and all the signals that it broadcasts. We need to recognise this quickly and create a care system for vulnerable children and young people that guarantees the best outcomes for them. What we call it, and how we label its key participants, is secondary to this goal. We will fail to get this right; and talking in terms of ‘workers rights’, for example, is not encouraging, and if we remain attached to such outmoded terms they will only promote outmoded thinking.

New opportunities with Rainbow: apply to be a therapeutic foster carer

Therapeutic care training offers a whole range of possibilities for foster carers: training online, Therapeutic Foster care uk, training for therapeutic foster care – Rainbow will be happy to give you all the support needed to train in the way you are most comfortable with. Call 020 8427 3355 for an informal chat. And if you decide to take things further, we can visit you in your home and discuss therapeutic foster care in a lot more detail. At Rainbow, our goal is to make sure that you are  confident you are making the right decision about a future in foster care. For our therapeutic foster care training, we particularly welcome applications from people who have had recent experience of working with children.

For fostering generally: we are also looking for people interested in offering foster homes to teenagers, sibling groups or for parent and child placements and we provide specialist support and training to cover these categories. Rainbow can advise on the following how long long does it take to become a foster carer,

 foster carers requirements, types of fostering and foster carer payments. And we welcome all applicants, regardless of their ethnicity, religion or cultural background, sexual orientation and relationship status.

Rainbow news articles:

24th, January 2018

The Local Government Association has revealed that last year, every forty nine seconds, a child was referred to local http://bit.ly/2e8PrIK

Good news at the end of this Rainbow…more birthdays to celebrate – our best wishes to all who are celebrating this month!

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