The support of supervising social workers is critical to foster carer retention, amid deepening shortages of capacity in the sector, research has shown.
All but one of 114 UK fostering services surveyed in 2024 for the Fostering Network’s latest State of the Nations’ Foster Care report said there was a shortage of carers to meet local needs, down from all but six at the time of the charity’s last such report, in 2021.
Four in ten of the services had seen a decrease in their number of approved mainstream (non-kinship) carers in the previous year, with just 19% reporting an increase, in line with year-on-year declines in the number of approved households in England recorded in official data.
Lack of service support key factor behind resignations
At the same time, six in ten of 2,883 current foster carers questioned for the study said they had considered resigning (46%) or were currently considering doing so (14%).
Among this group, the most common reasons were a lack of support from their fostering service and a lack of respect from other professionals in the team around the child (54%).
Among a separate group of 169 former foster carers surveyed, a lack of support from the fostering service was the most common reason they had left the role, being cited by 41%.
However, the Fostering Network found significant differences between former and current foster carers’ views of their supervising social workers.
The role of the supervising social worker
Statutory guidance on fostering services in England states that every foster carer should be allocated an appropriately qualified social worker from the fostering service (the supervising social worker) who is responsible for overseeing the support they receive.
Their role is to supervise the carer’s work, to ensure that they are meeting the child’s needs, assess their performance, help develop their skills and offer support.
They must make regular visits to the foster carer, including at least one unannounced visit a year.
Differing perceptions of supervising practitioners
While 74% of current foster carers rated the support of their supervising social workers as good or excellent, this was true of 47% of former carers.
Similarly, 51% of former foster carers said they always or usually felt treated as equal and valued by supervising social workers, compared with 76% of current foster carers.
Having positive relationships with social workers was cited as the one thing working well in fostering by 21% of current carers, the most popular of all answers.
However, while 96% had an allocated supervising practitioner, less than half (44%) had had a consistent social worker over the previous two years, with carers having an average of 2.2 over this time.
Views of children’s social workers
Foster carers were less positive about children’s social workers, with 53% saying that they always or usually felt treated as equal and valued by them, down from 57% in the Fostering Network’s 2021 survey.
There was a similar fall – from 45% to 41% – in the proportion who felt that the support they received from children’s social workers was good or excellent.
One specific issue around this relationship related to foster carers’ authority to make decisions about children, with just 31% saying that social workers were always clear about which decisions carers were able to make.
In cases where they had not been given authority, less than half of carers – 48%, down from 55% in 2021 – felt social workers always or usually responded to requests for decisions in a timely fashion.
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Levels of burnout
Behind lack of support and respect from practitioners, burnout or poor wellbeing related to fostering was cited as the next most common reason why current carers had, or were, considering resigning, with 53% reporting this.
Overall, 58% of current – and 73% of former – carers had experienced burnout or poor wellbeing, with this group of current carers being seven times as likely to have considered resigning than other respondents.
The network also found that just 48% of carers felt able to ask for support for their wellbeing when they needed it, without fear of negative consequences for them or the children they were looking after.
Carers struggling more financially
The charity also found that carers were increasingly struggling financially, with a third saying their fostering allowance and any expenses they could claim met the full costs of looking
after the children they foster, down significantly from the 56% recorded in 2021.
Allowances reported by carers largely fell short of the Fostering Network’s recommended rates.
This led to children missing out on activities, holidays, birthday and Christmas celebrations, clothing and education costs, while most foster carers (72%) said they used other personal income to cover deficits.
This included foster care fees, which fostering services are not required to pay, unlike allowances, and are designed to recognise carers’ time, skills and experience. Over half (56%) of carers received a fee, though only a quarter of foster carers said it was sufficient to cover their essential living costs.
National recruitment drive
Across the UK, less than half (48%) of foster carers said they would recommend fostering to others who may be considering it, down from 54% in 2021, with 17% saying they would not, up from 12%.
The report comes with the UK government striving to recruit more carers in England by funding regional fostering hubs, which are designed to provide a single point of contact for people interested in fostering and support them through the process from initial enquiry to application.
Recommendations for reform
On the back of its study, the Fostering Network urged governments across the UK to:
- Address sufficiency issues within children and families social work teams, prioritising and financing targeted social work recruitment and regulation of caseloads.
- Increase allowances to meet the charity’s recommended rates and introduce and fund a national minimum fee framework, with fees paid 52 weeks a year, and a national pension scheme for foster carers.
- Develop a register of foster carers to increase foster carers’ status, support matching of children with foster carers and take responsibility for decisions about removing carers.
- Introduce, by law, maximum delegated authority for foster carers to make day-to-day decisions on behalf of the children and young people.
- Invest in the creation, implementation and monitoring of a standardised framework for pre- and post-approval training for foster carers.
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Foster carers already have too much power. Social Workers don’t need another group getting in the way of them trying to do their job. I have worked with many foster carers some of whom have been excellent in understanding of the children’s behaviour as a result of trauma, and willingness to work with the child’s SW, others have been absolutely awful and display a clear disregard for social workers whose advice they simply will not take, and then eject the child who they label as the problem, and who is often a sibling thereby damaging the siblings relationship, because the one remaining sees what they have to do to be kept and joins with labelling their own sibling. Furthermore, we can never get the carers de-registered because they complain about lack of information/training /support.
The requests by the fostering network is yet another example of pleasing a group who have too much inappropriate power because they are fewer in number than needed rather than looking at the entire system and addressing the root cause of the shortage. For example, stop insisting that we ‘work with the family’ when it is evident that they can’t/wont care for their own children, remove them much earlier and place appropriately until their majority. In addition, legal need to be held responsible for not supporting social workers to remove, they appear to be more concerned about cost and the LA reputation regardless of the price the child has to pay as a result of inaction or poor decisions.
Have you been a foster carer? Caring for a traumatized child 24/7 is very different than visiting for an hour once every 6 weeks and spouting some drivel about giving more rewards for violent and distressed behavior. These children need far more therapeutic support than they are given by the LA and when all that falls on foster carers who often have their own children’s well-being to consider also, it can lead to extreme burnout and then regrettably loss of placement. Your response is the reason for Foster Carers leaving the profession. Some are better qualified than the pen pushing, book reading, inexperienced social workers who think they’re God.
Couldn’t have said it better myself without using profanity.
I hope your post will give you an opportunity to reflect on your views and perhaps take it to your supervisor to develop your emotional intelligence and skills to the foster parents. We do not have too much power, as the power with is those with Parental responsibility ie social worker or parents. as you should know we have delegated responsibility for some care aspects.
I have yet to come across one Foster Carer that has any power let alone too much 🤦🏻♀️
Have you been a foster carer? Foster carers have no power and are rarely listened to despite the child being in their care 24/7.
Social workers please don’t sign off a Friday email with, ‘Have a restful weekend!’ As foster carers, our weekends are often filled with disregulated, over or under stimulated children and young people. It’s hard work. Give some credit for that.
Oh my gosh. This is very depressing and somewhat arrogant. This social worker clearly has no idea what it is like to live with trauma 24/7 and frankly doesn’t seem to care so long as they get what they want. No wonder we are all leaving the industry!
This shows how utterly clueless the Fostering Network are. But we knew that already.
Maximum “delegated authority” will lead to “maximum accountability” when something goes wrong. Foster carers are already blamed for everything, which is the actual cause of the retention crisis. How will taking away a layer of possible protection from the decision making process help?
If the Fostering Network actually supported foster carers instead of simply being an overpaid recruitment and PR operation they would know this.
Well that’s not entirely true since when social services screw up to the point a fatality happens they have zero accountability and use the “lessons learnt” line while foster carers are hung out to dry for even minor things.
I agree. But giving maximum accountability to foster carers via “Delegated Authority” merely ensures that they’ve no way out to even try to defend themselves from social workers like Andi above.
People like Andi are a huge part of the problem. Foster carers are the ones actually doing the job. We arethe ones who understandably grow feeling for the young people and truly care about them. What most certainly does not help us are social workers (only a select few thankfully) who think they know better than those of us with countless years of experience. We are the ones who have sleepless nights from worrying about our young people, cry our eyes out when the children have had their hearts broken for whatever reason etc etc. We don’t go home at the end of a working day, to our lives, these children are a massive part of our lives. We don’t get every weekend off, regular holidays or a healthy wage. We do this willingly and really don’t think having our views taken into account or shown a little respect is too much to ask for.
A massive part of the problem is that “ego” doesn’t belong in this scenario. Social Workers such as Andi blaming foster carers for “not listening to social workers” is a big problem. Social Workers have valuable input, equally do foster carers. Until we can move past this culture of control and dictatorship (often because it is viewed that lack of workers’ rights equals no rights for foster carers) the children will always be the ones to suffer from the mistreatment and ultimately foster carers leaving, contributing to the retention crisis we are experiencing.
Any complaints that are upheld are done so on the basis that the proof exists!
The principles of social work exist for very good reason and whilst I agree that the system needs an overhaul, it is certainly not an answer to blame the foster carers. Anyone who does is missing the point completely. Sadly without foster carers, the future for our children looks frightening.