Future of foster care: consultation

Part 7: Retention Of Foster Carers

Recruitment and retention of foster carers are intrinsically linked. We know that supported foster carers results in supported children, and a commitment to fostering. To both attract and keep foster carers it is essential that they receive adequate support and recognition for their vital role in providing stable homes for children who cannot live at home. This is particularly important as we build on the good practice and innovation already underway and stretch our thinking on the future of fostering.

Learning, development and practical support

Foster carers play a central role in the lives of children and young people looked after away from home. The quality of relationships with their caregivers is crucial in order for children and young people to thrive. Although quality relationships cannot be delivered simply by training, new skills and knowledge can help committed caregivers to cope with the increasingly complex needs and trauma of the children and young people they are looking after.

The Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) published The Standard For Foster Care in 2017, which sets out learning expectations for foster carers at different learning stages: pre-approval, post-approval and continuous professional development (CPD). However, we have been told by stakeholders that the SSSC’s Standards have not been implemented fully on the ground. In addition, learning and development for foster carers can vary across local authority areas, depending on local needs and priorities, with additional support provided by third sector organisations and independent and voluntary providers. We have heard from foster carers that they would welcome more consistent provision of reflective supervision, peer support, mentoring, informal training and therapeutic intensive support.

At a national level, the Scottish Government is working towards the development of trauma training and resources to support alternative caregivers to provide trauma-informed care for the children and young people in their care and, where appropriate, with the wider families of those children. This may be particularly relevant for infants and children who have experienced trauma within their primary caregiver relationship(s) and have specific and unique needs for attuned care, to support their recovery and the development of healthy attachment relationships.

We anticipate trauma training pilots for foster carers in 2025. The Scottish Government also continues to invest in the Pathways programme in 2024-25 to allow adoptive families, kinship and permanent fostering families to benefit from therapeutic support and a peer support parenting group.

Questions

What is your experience of the SSSC ‘Standard for Foster Care’ and do you find it helpful?

Should there be a new national learning framework for foster carers which could also be a pathway for continuous development?

What more can the Scottish Government do to nationally support the learning and development of foster carers?

What, if any, specific support might be needed to ensure that foster care in Scotland is attuned to the unique and specific needs of infants and very young children?

What other practical support would help foster carers?

What, if any, additional learning and development would be needed for the ‘flexible fostering’ approach?

Financial support

It is key that foster carers in Scotland are financially renumerated so that the costs of caring for a child are met.

While remunerated, foster carers are not employed by their fostering service, and are self-employed^{[16] [17]} for tax purposes. The current financial support model is set out below. It has been suggested by stakeholders that there may be an argument for nationalisation or harmonisation of payments to assist recruitment and retention across Scotland.

• Scottish Recommended National Allowance^[18] - All foster carers receive a weekly fostering allowance which is calculated to cover the cost of caring for a looked after child, which it is acknowledged is greater than the costs of looking after a for child who has not got experience of care. This includes food, clothes, toiletries and other reasonable expenses, and it is not renumeration for the caregiver. The allowance received will depend on the age of each child. The Scottish Government committed to setting a Scottish Recommended Allowance for Foster and Kinship carers (SRA). The SRA was introduced in August 2023 and a review of the SRA is taking place. It will assess whether the policy intent, which was to bring transparency and consistency to allowances in Scotland, has been achieved in practice, what is working and what is not, and areas for improvement.
• Fees - Fees are separate and are paid in addition to allowances. They may be paid by fostering services to reflect the expertise and nature of the tasks undertaken by foster carers. There is variation in fees across Scotland.
• Additional payments - While the national allowance is designed to cover all the costs of caring for a looked after child, many fostering services decide to provide some additional payments to cover 'one off' expenses. It is for fostering services to determine what those might be, but common extra payments include a birthday and religious festival payment, start-up costs or other payments. There is variation in additional payments across Scotland.
• Retainer fees - When foster carers do not have any children placed with them, some, but not all, fostering services pay a retainer fee. The fee is usually for a time limited period and may not cover the whole duration they do not have a child or young person in their care. While a retainer fee is being paid, the fostering service would expect the foster carer to be available to receive a child into their home, to maintain availability of a bedroom, and to not take on additional work. There is variation in retainer fees across Scotland.
• Continuing Care allowances^[19]– some fostering services will continue to pay an allowance and fee to a foster carer when a young person remains in that placement after their 18^th birthday. There is variation in continuing care allowances across Scotland.

The legal requirements to publish information relating to carer allowances and fees are inconsistent. For example, local authorities are under a duty to publish (among other things) the rates for kinship carer allowances^[20], but not the rates for foster care allowances. Similarly, IFAs are not required to publish their foster carer allowance rates.

Questions

How effective is the current financial model for foster carers? Is there an alternative? Please explain your answer.

Do you think there should be national approach to fees for foster carers? Please explain your answer.

Do you think there should be a national approach to additional payments? Please explain your answer.

Should the financial model for foster carers include a retainer fee for when a foster carer does not have a child placed with them? Please explain your answer.

Do you think there should be a national approach for Continuing Care allowances and fees? Please explain your answer.

Would an enhanced framework of transparency with a legal requirement, for example, on local authorities and independent fostering agencies to publish foster care allowances assist foster carers and wider recruitment and retention?

Status, recognition and value

We have heard evidence from fostering services, foster carers, and those representing them, that more needs to be done to improve the status, value and respect given to foster carers. All the proposals in this consultation, including a national recruitment campaign should help increase the recognition and value placed on foster carers. We are also consulting, through a different exercise, at a broad level on the current definition of a “relevant person” as set out in the Children’s Hearings (Scotland) Act 2011 for the purpose of participating in children’s hearings Children's Hearings Redesign - Scottish Government Consultations - Citizen Space.

Additional proposals to improve the value and recognition of foster carers are set out below and include a national charter; day to day decision making; a national register; allegations guidance; support on raising concerns; and wider issues.

National charter

• The development of a national charter of support for foster carers and fostering services (Local Authority and IFAs) which, we would recommend, all fostering services would have in place.
• The national charter would be co-designed with foster carers and local partners, and it would be principle based with a focus on supporting the value and recognition of foster carers. We hope this would empower foster carers to have a key voice and ensure foster carers feel recognised for the role they play in the children and young people’s lives they care for.
• The charter would set out what foster carers can expect from the fostering service and what the fostering service can expect from foster carers.
• The Scottish Government would develop a charter template which local authorities and IFAs could adapt for their service.

Question

What are your views on the proposal for a national charter of support for foster carers?

What else could national government do to increase the value, status and recognition of foster carers?

Day to day decisions

A foster carer is looking after the child on behalf of the local authority and will not have parental rights for the child in their own right. What a carer can do day to day depends on whether the decision is necessary to safeguard the child’s health, development and welfare in accordance with section 5 of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995, and what the person with parental rights and responsibilities for the child has agreed. Scottish Government guidance exists to support this^[21]. For foster care to be successful, enabling the carer to take appropriate day to day decisions should be encouraged, and there are opportunities for carer and birth parent to work together to make this happen.

Questions

Is the existing framework under which foster carers can make decisions clear?

Would further guidance, for example good practice, be helpful to support decision making for foster carers (sometimes called delegated decision making) be helpful? If yes, please explain what you’d like it to include.

A national register

In 2022, the ongoing Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry (SCAI) heard evidence from relevant experts, regulatory bodies and from survivors of abuse about foster care. A range of witnesses gave evidence, and some spoke about maintaining a national register or database of foster carers. There were varying views – some stakeholders expressed a view that a register would not add to existing mechanisms for recruitment^[22], while others supported the scheme^[23] as they felt that the current approach is not risk free and is reliant on the foster carer being honest about their previous residence. Currently, registration and de-registration of carers are functions of the foster care panel, and prospective foster carers are required to undergo suitability checks prior to being approved as foster carers. These checks include a criminal background check facilitated by Disclosure Scotland.

A national database had been previously considered by the National Foster Care review in 2012, however at that time it was not taken forward and alternative strategies for realising the perceived benefits of a national database were explored.

SCAI has still to publish its findings in relation to the Phase 7 public hearings on foster care. However, in response to issues raised during the evidence sessions, the Scottish Government undertook some early engagement with stakeholders and foster carers to understand if a national register for foster carers in Scotland would benefit the sector. We heard a range of diverse opinions, and it was clear that there was no consensus.

To generate further views, we have set out below, based on what we have heard, suggestions for what a national register in Scotland could look like and do. We really welcome your thoughts to inform whether this idea merits further scoping out and would add value to the landscape.

A national register for foster carers in Scotland could sit independently from the national and local government, and we could explore options to use an existing organisation or a third sector organisation to hold the register. Data protection issues would need to be considered.

The primary purpose of a national foster care register for Scotland could be to increase public protection, improve ease of mobility across fostering agencies and increase safeguarding for children. To this end, we propose that the key aims of a national register for Scotland could be to:

• improve foster carer status, by bringing foster carers in line with other parts of the children’s workforce who are registered and regulated;
• support the process of transferring to a new agency or local authority, by enabling a foster carer’s ‘new’ foster service to carry out a simple check of their approval status;
• provide robust safeguarding measures, by enabling foster services to see whether a prospective carer has had their approval removed previously; and
• provide more local and national data to understand better when more foster carers are needed.

A national register may also have the potential to provide a national approach to matching foster carers with children and young people. In theory, this could enable children to stay in their local community (as it would cover both local authority and independent fostering agencies) and be matched with foster carers who are best suited to their needs. In addition, if there were no suitable local foster carers available, it may be easier through the register to access foster carers in bordering local authorities so a child could stay in the broad region, rather than a different part of the country. We would need to be mindful of unintended consequences, such as priority given to location over a child’s needs. A national register may also avoid local authorities incurring additional costs by using placements across the border in England, or other parts of the UK.

A national register could also be used as a tool to support sufficiency planning, to provide meaningful live data to drive commissioning and recruitment planning. It could inform workforce planning and development in addition to supporting foster carer recruitment planning. This might include, over time, the development of the register to include the skills, experience and learning undertaken by foster carers which might help with matching between foster carers and children and young people.

Questions

What are your views on a national register for foster carers in Scotland?

If a register is introduced where should the register be held?

What are your views on the potential to linking continuous professional development to a register?

What are your views on a national approach to foster care placement matching?

How can the Scottish Government support local authorities with resource planning of foster carers, including building an evidence base and data on placements, including those outside local areas?

Allegations

Foster carers look after children who may have experienced trauma in their lives which has led to them being placed away from their birth family. This can mean that children and young people, and foster carers may need additional support.

In 2013, we published best practice Guidance for local authorities and independent fostering agencies on how to respond when there are concerns about the safety and well-being of children in foster care. The guidance is designed to both help to ensure positive outcomes for children in foster care and to minimise stress on foster carers.

Allegations against foster carers must always be investigated, as the safety of the child is paramount. A recent survey of foster carers showed that allegations can have an emotional, health and financial impact on foster carers^[24] and there is a need to improve practice around allegations and support foster carers through the process.

Questions

Should the Scottish Government update its guidance on managing allegations against foster carers? If yes, please explain what you’d like to see updated or added.

What more can the Scottish Government do to ensure that allegations against foster carers are dealt with quickly and fairly?

Raising Concerns

Given their significant involvement in the upbringing of a child, foster carers are often well placed to highlight poor and unsafe practice in fostering, and child protection more generally or issues relating to the fostering services. Many foster carers already do that and are supported by fostering services and local authorities who have policies in place to support and encourage raising concerns without it adversely impacting upon the foster carers, or the care that is provided to the child.

Questions

Is there is a need for the Scottish Government to take action in this area? If so, please explain why and what would be helpful, for example best practice guidance?

Wider issues

Questions

Is there anything not covered in the consultation which impacts on fostering that you would like to tell us about, or take action on? E.g. housing, poverty etc.