Future of foster care: consultation analysis – updated final report

10. Other issues

This chapter covers the final question which invited views on anything not covered by the consultation questions. It also contains certain themes that were raised repeatedly across multiple consultation questions but were not directly aligned to a particular question.

Q36. 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.

Almost three quarters of respondents left a comment at Q36. The most prevalent themes were that wider system changes are needed, comments about housing and cost of living support for foster carers, and to better consider the needs of children and young people.

Wider system changes

Many respondents highlighted the need for wider system changes to support the future of foster care. In addition, a few or some respondents raised this issue at other questions, notably Q2, Q6, Q10 and Q11; those comments are included in the analysis below. Key points raised included the need for broader changes within society and the care system, as well as the need for a fundamental review of how foster carers should work alongside families and other health and social care professionals. Some respondents called for greater consideration of the role of kinship care alongside this consultation, highlighting the need for greater support and protections for kinship carers and taking into account their role in the care system along with foster carers.

The need to tackle broader societal issues, which could help to prevent children from being in foster care and improve the support they receive, was also raised. This includes tackling unmet needs, poverty, housing issues, substance use, mental health, and violence against women.

Other changes suggested included:

• Addressing bureaucracy in health and social care to speed up decision-making or to improve data quality, such as foster carers making direct referrals to day care or outreach support, a view endorsed by participants at an engagement event.
• Reviewing the role of foster care in relation to other professionals or family members, such as: ensuring foster carers have the equivalent of Parental Rights when caring for a child; reviewing consent and permission arrangements; the ability to hold social workers accountable; and empowering carers and other professionals to make decisions, particularly when those go against a parent’s wishes.
• Providing more resources in early years or health and social care to address recruitment, training needs and delivery, including conducting thorough reviews to identify and eliminate systematic racism and cultural biases within the foster care system, ensuring fair and equitable treatment for all families.
• Whole system changes such as those that support “interconnected support systems that enable individualised responses across the continuum of care”, cultural reform that focuses on family support while prioritising the safety of children, and that address changing mindsets and offer transformational leadership.
• Ensuring The Promise is fully actioned, such as focusing on the pace of change and accountability, so intended outcomes are realised.
• System changes to directly support improved outcomes for children and young people such as legislative changes so children who enter care at birth are not still in care when attending school, to improve the transition to Continuing Care arrangements or increasing practical support to families, such as funding a cleaner.

Housing and cost of living support for foster carers

The need for greater housing support for foster carers was highlighted by many respondents. Difficulties in accessing affordable, quality housing were highlighted, as were limitations depending on the size of houses that are able to be accessed. It was noted by some that bigger properties can enable foster carers to take on more children and, in particular, support keeping siblings together. Providing existing and prospective foster carers with additional support to access housing was suggested. Working with housing departments and coming up with creative solutions, such as giving foster carer loans for extensions, was suggested. Other comments highlighted challenges with damage to foster carers’ homes and taking into account housing challenges in foster carer recruitment.

Several respondents highlighted the need to reduce costs related to caring, including addressing cost of living challenges, reflecting on how this can lead to difficulties in recruiting and retaining foster carers. This issue was also raised by attendees at an engagement event with professionals. Cost-related issues were wide-ranging, including: financial support with new placements; more financial support to cover bills such as heating, electricity, clothing and food; fees for supporting young people past age 18; calls for increased foster carer fees; requests for discounted or no council tax; and salaries, pensions and benefits for foster carers.

Consider the views and provide more support for children and young people

The need to further consider the views and needs of children and young people was highlighted by several respondents and by children and young people with care experience who contributed to the Who Cares? Scotland report, as well as to keep their needs at the centre of decision-making. This includes considering the needs of siblings, children and young people with disabilities, young people over 16, children and young people with FASD, cultural and religious needs, social and emotional needs, and other individual needs. Specific housing needs, such as for those with disabilities, were also noted.

Several respondents called for greater support for children and young people, particularly the need for access to information and advocacy, housing, education, and mental health support for those aged 18 and over. Attendees at one engagement event also highlighted the need for mental health support and advocated for automatic access to advocacy services.

The need for increased resourcing

The need for increased resources to support the fostering system and enable implementation of the proposals to develop a flexible fostering model was raised across questions, particularly in Q2, Q6, Q11, Q12, Q15, and Q33, as well as some at Q36. Comments on resourcing are considered here to avoid repetition.

Many comments highlighted the need to invest in social care services, as well as in fostering, to support the proposals. Perceived reductions in funding or under-funding of health and social care supports led to calls to increase funding for resources such as social workers, family support services as well as therapeutic interventions. Additionally, investment in IT and data systems or administration support was requested. A ‘spend to save’ mindset was advocated by attendees at one engagement event, recognising that enhanced support to enable children to remain at home was more cost-effective than other forms of care.

In turn, increased investment was viewed as a key way to strengthen support for foster carers, for instance, through having more time to communicate with or receive support from social workers. In addition, there were calls for more funding to enable key objectives of the proposals to be realised, such as employing or training more foster carers, increasing support for families at the edge of care and for family and community care-based options, and building capacity in local areas to respond to a national recruitment drive. Perceived benefits for children and young people from enhanced funding included more appropriate placements, improvements in listening and responding to their views, improved interactions with people supporting them and access to timely support.

“Without staff and resources, how do we accomplish this?” As a first step, we suggest a thorough analysis is conducted of the staffing needed to deliver the flexible fostering approach at local levels. Currently, workers are under huge pressure to deliver the status quo of current day-to-day work of recruiting, assessing, training and supporting foster carers and supporting the children in their care. Moving to the new approach will create additional challenges in terms of staffing.” – UNISON Scotland

The need for more information

Across questions, calls were made for more information or respondents expressed uncertainty regarding how to answer. These comments were most prevalent at Q29, but also mentioned in particular at Q7, Q10 and Q33, with comments consolidated here.

Areas where more information or clarity was sought by respondents included:

• Information on how the proposals would be implemented, with one suggesting small-scale pilots to test the flexible fostering model prior to rollout.
• Information on IFAs to enable an informed view of them, such as the pros and cons of IFAs having charitable status.
• Understanding why the SSSC Standard for Foster Care has not been fully implemented - for instance, attendees at one engagement event suggested this was due to being kept in draft format for so long and launched softly.
• On how the national recruitment approach would align with local government and the third sector.
• Undertaking detailed impact assessments on the proposals.
• Explanation of terms such as ‘market shaping’, ‘forecasting’ and exploration of the best mix of providers to achieve desired outcomes.
• Consideration of whether there would be unintended consequences of foster carers being registered with the SSSC.
• Knowledge of potential alternatives to the current financial model for foster carers.