Today the Department for Education published the National Fostering Stocktake to inform a comprehensive understanding of the current fostering system in England.
In response, Dr Carol Homden CBE, CEO of Coram said:
The Fostering Stocktake is refreshingly child-centred and, while raising important questions about the nature of the market and recognising that the sector is broadly supporting looked after children effectively, identifies specific and realisable improvements which can and must be made now.
Coram is ready to play its part and is shortly launching a Fostering Insight service to support these changes. We are enabling more looked after children to access Coram Voice’s Always Heard advocacy and advice service, and piloting Activity Days for Fostering as recommended in the Fostering Stocktake, sharing the learnings from our Adoption Activity Days. More work around contact is set to follow.
The Fostering Stocktake report references Coram Voice’s Bright Spots programme, which aims to improve the wellbeing of children and young people in care by identifying and promoting practices that have a positive influence on them. It includes the ‘Your Life Your Care’ survey to measure the quality of looked after children’s care experiences and their sense of wellbeing. Find out more about the programme and read the latest survey findings here.
The report also discusses the settings for contact with birth families, and references Coram’s publication A Guide to Best Practice in Supervised Child Contact (2010) which you can read here.
Find out more about Coram’s Activity Days for Fostering here.
You can read the full National Fostering Stocktake report here.