Fostering remains the primary form of care for looked-after children in England, with around 56,400 children in foster care at any one time. This sits within a wider population of approximately 83,600 looked-after children, and nearly 400,000 children receiving support from the social care system. Despite this sustained demand, the supply of foster carers has been under increasing pressure.
The total number of fostering households has declined year-on year since 2021 (from 45,370 to 42,190 households), leaving services struggling to ensure children can access appropriate family-based care with more children with adoption placement orders remaining in care because of adopter shortage and more use of residential placements because of lack of available fostering households.
This research updates the Department for Education’s survey of fostering and adoption propensity from over 10 years ago (Scott & Duncan, 2013) and comprises three key components:
- a rapid literature review of evidence on the barriers and facilitators to foster carer recruitment;
- quantitative analysis of fostering recruitment and retention data; and
- population-based modelling of fostering propensity.
Together, these strands enable a more granular understanding of both the structural and behavioural drivers of fostering, supporting efforts to design policies capable of delivering the scale of recruitment envisaged in recent reforms, including the creation of up to 10,000 additional fostering places.