The pressure is now decidedly on: Foster carers are needed as never before. The number of referrals made annually to children’s social care services has grown over the last decade by 100,000 youngsters. Child protection plans are put in place to ensure that safety is made paramount for individual children and the number of these has grown by 23,000 over the period. This amounts to the number of children in the care system having risen by twelve thousand in ten years.
It is now being reported that ninety children a day are entering the care system. These are the figures and they are sobering. Statistics are open to interpretation, and it is argued by some that such dramatic rises are driven by faster reporting. It is also claimed, that there may be a greater willingness to intervene by local authorities where there is a perceived risk to a child: hardly surprising and what we would all want – to avoid a repetition of some of the tragic cases of the past. The precautionary principle should always apply. Doing anything else invites risk.
The first reaction of a clearly purblind government is to ‘man the barricades’ with statistics of their own’. Most commonly, this is an eye-catching headline figure of additional investment amounting to millions of pounds. If the heat is really on, this is changed to billions. This tried, tested and trusted move ultimately serves to only create disengagement. But still it is relied upon by the government. And to prove the point in the context of these figures, a government spokesman said:
“We want every child to have the best start in life (don’t we all?) with the opportunities and the stability to fulfil their potential, which is why we have made £200bn available to councils up to 2020 for local services, including those for children and young people.”
Foster care provision will be impacted
Such a panglossian veneer is looking increasingly thin and set to get thinner. After all, the general public are used to such blandishments, and if they achieve anything at all, it is only to feed the general climate of cynicism. By themselves, such statements are inutile. Obfuscation is the order of the day and who loses? All of us. Is there a way to exert real pressure on governments – as they all rely on the ‘additional investment ruse’ to misdirect? There is, and it involves scrutinising actions – for they always speak louder than words – and for that matter statistics as well. This can be done in relation to this issue. The government has, apparently, received an ‘internal report’ looking into the causes of the increasing numbers of children caught up in the care system. But, and it is a big ‘but’, since most of us assume we live in a democracy where politicians are accountable, ministers have refused to publish the report’s findings. Obfuscation is one thing, deliberate concealment quite another. This is the slipperiest of slopes and indicative of a brazen attitude which carries clear dangers to the idea of an open society. Surely, we have the right to know what lies behind these figures. They should prompt action and fresh thinking. One hopes, for example, the authors of the recent foster care stocktake will be interested. They should certainly have been leading the charge to get this information. That they appear to have remained silent tells much. Everyone with an involvement in the provision of foster care – as well as those actually providing it – has the right to know. Think again: ninety children a day end up in care at the present time – we should know why.
Implications for the foster care stocktake
Those responsible for the stocktake who took a rather condescending and otiose attitude to the idea of Foster Carers being considered professionals should reflect on the fact it is now a professional elite denying the public access to the report’s findings. Ultimately, this is more unsettling than the judgment of The Fostering Network about the foster care stocktake – that it was a “missed opportunity.” It seems ministers now feel able to suppress what are likely to be inconvenient truths. This is not new, but where it has a bearing on the most vulnerable in society – children – it reeks of a moral degeneracy that should be robustly challenged.
The government should come clean immediately about what is contained in this report. It does not require much intuition to surmise that funding lies at the heart of the problem. Only recently, the vice-president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, Rachel Dickinson, stated councils were having to make cuts exacerbated by a funding crisis. And that these were counterproductive: “Although government data shows spend on children’s social care has increased year on year, this oversimplifies the situation we find ourselves in and does not take into account the increasingly counterintuitive decisions we are having to make in order to manage rising demand alongside reducing budgets.” No punches have been pulled: she is also on the record as saying “ We are absolutely clear that, unless new funding is found, these vital services, which keep children safe from harm and the worst abuses of society, will reach a tipping point.”
Because the government is being evasive, there is a step that could be taken which would provide additional funding. In 2016, the UK spent £13.4 billion on overseas aid. It may be that by 2021, a figure not far short of £14.5 billion will be allocated. Given that it was reported in 2017 that officials at the Department for International Development were given so much money they apparently did not know what to do with it. As it had to be spent, other government departments were approached, but, as the sums were said to be overwhelming, did not know how to spend it either. Clearly, we are entering the world of Alice in Wonderland. It is obvious a proportion of this aid money should be redirected to funding children’s social care. Why? It seems likely a significant proportion – and an evidently growing one – of children in this country are as much at risk as children overseas. And another thought: last year mandarins in Whitehall received just under £800,000 in bonuses for clearly not making a very good job of handing out the £13 billion of foreign aid. The defence: these were performance related bonuses – they certainly were, but many might argue more along the lines of a pantomime performance.
Meanwhile, we have some fantastic foster carers in this country and a pressing need for more of them. Perhaps the government, since it has a fondness for performance related bonuses, could create a fund and pay an annual bonus to the nation’s foster carers. This is especially as they appear not to have known in the Department for International Development quite what to do with the money. The management of foreign aid spending was debacle: it did, however, result in twenty one top civil servants in the Department for International Development being given up to £10,000 in bonus (a total of £175,000) whilst another £616,000 was shared amongst 514 junior members of staff.
Returning to the recent foster care stocktake: The leading charity, The Fostering Network, wrote to the Children’s Minister, Nadhim Zahawi saying: “The report and its recommendations were keenly anticipated, but the overwhelming feeling following publication is one of a huge opportunity wasted.” The charity also said: “There is nothing radical or brave within the report, nor anything that your department did not know about before the stocktake. It is a missed opportunity and we fail to see how this is value for taxpayers’ money nor a good use of our and the wider sector’s time over the past year.”
What could be added is that the stocktake; if neither radical or brave, completely lacked imagination: perhaps we have helped in this regard. It seems likely that in future years the same panic-stricken chaos will ensue ensuring the foreign aid budget is spent, so perhaps those stalwarts of the stocktake Messrs. Narey and Owers could pop along the corridor in Whitehall and ask for some of it to go to the UK’s dedicated foster carers. Doing this may go a long way in creating a climate of trust again. And just think what a positive effect on recruitment there might be, if foster carers received the recognition they deserve by receiving such an annual bonus.
Reasons to foster with Rainbow.
Rainbow has been operating for over twenty years. This means we have built extremely strong relationships with the local authorities. Our focus is particularly strong on achieving the best outcomes for our foster children and foster carers. This is driven by the support – 24hr 365 days a year – and our high quality foster care training programmes. These are friendly, enjoyable – often a place where long lasting friendships are formed. We also offer the flexibility of online foster care training to complement our usual programmes.
Rainbow’s fostering allowances are amongst the most competitive. We work with our foster carers to identify the best professional career path for them. If, for example, they want to train to foster therapeutically, the programmes we offer are second to none. Above all, we are a community, through the year we have social functions and Awards ceremonies where everyone in our diverse community gets together to both learn from and celebrate one another fostering achievements.
We produce a quarterly newsletter keeping everyone in touch with what’s happening in Rainbow and the wider world of foster care. It’s a chance to learn – as well as contribute.
Interested in a professional foster care career with Rainbow?
Nothing could be easier: our lines are 020 8427 3355 or our National Foster Line 0330 311 2845. If preferred, leave your contact information on our website: we will call back. Due to our success, we are expanding and recruiting across London, Manchester and Birmingham for foster carers. Join your new fostering story with ours.
You might want to visit our foster care news page for stories and comment: https://bit.ly/2kJHpsO
Blog is written by Will Saunders: Rainbow Fostering – Content Management/Marketing
The post Foster care needs to operate in a climate of trust appeared first on Rainbow.
