Foster care provision is set to come under even greater strain in the coming weeks. The reason: delays to Mental Health treatment in England mean more children are being taken into care. The parents of these children have been driven beyond the point where they can cope. Warnings about the situation are coming in thick and fast. The latest has been issued by Steve Crocker the president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services. The rising number of child protection referrals is being driven by increasing numbers of young people with emotional needs. Crocker says: “we are seeing children in the social care system because they have not been supported in the NHS mental health system.” And there seems to be no prospect of the situation improving in the near future. 

“Typically we are seeing children with levels of distress and anxiety that manifest in self-harm or harming others. They are referred to children and adolescent mental services – CAMHS – but it is not uncommon for waiting lists to be over a year”, he also said. The result of this is that when such children eventually find their way into a foster care placement, their behaviour becomes more extreme. They are traumatised and are best looked after by Foster Carers with experience in providing therapeutic care. The problem is that foster carers with this kind of experience are in shorter supply. This inevitably limits the options for fostering service providers. Putting an emotionally disturbed child with foster carers lacking the requisite experience puts the stability of a placement at high risk. When a placement breaks down there is a further impact on the child as well as the carers. It is this dynamic which is particularly concerning – especially when set against the ongoing difficulties of recruitment and retention of foster carers faced by local authorities and fostering agencies. 

Foster recognition of the need for more resources.

It must be a fact that if children with mental health issues find themselves on waiting lists exceeding a year, resources are wholly inadequate. Then there is the underlying issue of the management of resources needing to be urgently addressed. Foster carers, like all of us, have seen the government pouring millions into the NHS. This is increasingly being seen as panic-induced expediency. The feeling is growing that money is being thrown at a spiralling set of problems of which mental health provision is but one. Simply saying more money is being spent no longer reassures. The public has realised it is the management of scarce resources that is the issue. The days when the country could afford the kind of politically motivated heuristic approach so much government expenditure now looks to have been, are long gone. This means the only game in town has to be effective reform: a much bigger challenge for any government. Especially one that is cash-strapped. But real change may be on the horizon – for foster care at least – and it may spread to other areas of government responsibility. A review, commissioned by the government, into children’s social care in England has called for a multibillion-pound revamp of the system. The report produced by Josh MacAlister is blunt – he writes:

“Change is now both morally urgent and financially unavoidable. We have a stark choice: keep pouring money into a faltering system or reform and invest to improve people’s lives and make them sustainable for the future.”

True reform is the progressive desideratum everyone working in children’s social care recognises as now being needed. The government has been hoist by its own petard since it has been berated by its own review for a “lack of national direction.” Of course, money will be needed – lots of it – MacAlister identifies the need for a five-year, £2.6bn investment programme. Without this, the system he describes as being under “extreme stress”, is likely to remain dysfunctional in key areas and fail to deliver optimal care. This already applies to the experiences of those children waiting longer than a year for an appointment with CAMHS. 

The predicament the government faces – which will have long-term consequences for society if not addressed – is born out by a range of figures reflecting the situation earlier this year.

• Every month, over 400,000 youngsters are being seen for mental health issues. This is the highest number on record.
• The total has increased by 147,853 since February 2020 – a fifty-four per cent increase, and by 80,096 over 2022 representing a jump of twenty-four per cent. January’s figure of 411,132 was the first time the numbers exceeded 400,000.

And if the situation is going to improve over the short and medium term, there must also be a committed attempt to address the sentiments of the country’s foster carers. Many have been living in a state of high dudgeon for far too long which impacts both recruitment and retention. And, as MacAlister’s review call for in the tone of a clarion call, a reimagining of the children’s social care model is about as overdue as anything can be.

Start a new career in foster care in 2023 

Rainbow Fostering will be celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary in 20223. Over the years we have grown to become one of the leading independent fostering agencies – IFAs – in the country. We have also been rated ‘Outstanding in all areas’ by Ofsted – 

Learn more about the work of Ofsted by visiting https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofsted/about

Rainbow provides its foster carers with high-quality training and plenty of opportunities to specialise in different areas of foster care. These include Parent and Child fostering, therapeutic foster care, foster care for sibling groups, fostering teenagers, and foster care for disabled children. 

You can call 0330 311 2845 to talk with one of knowledgeable team members about the benefits a career in fostering offers.

We recommend checking out our website’s FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) page which can be found at – https://rainbowfostering.co.uk/frequent-asked-questions/

And visit our blog section – a wide-ranging knowledge bank for foster carers plus anyone interested in the issues that relate to fostering. This week we recommend the following blog which covers the following subject of getting a diagnosis of a learning disability

 https://rainbowfostering.co.uk/foster-care-preparing-a-bedroom-for-an-older-child-2/

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