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News: Renewed calls for national minimum allowance for foster carers

Posted 4 November, 2022 by Jennifer Drummond

A new report has revealed a postcode lottery for funding for children, young people and the foster carers who look after them, leading to renewed calls for a national minimum allowance for foster carers to be implemented in Scotland.

The annual Foster Care Allowances report from The Fostering Network has identified discrepancies across age brackets and no increase in foster care allowances in some local authority areas for almost a decade.

Key findings from Scotland Foster Care Allowances Survey Report (click here to access) 2022-23 include:

Foster care allowances vary significantly within each age band. In a year, this difference can be as much as £6,954 per child
Only 11 local authorities in Scotland increased their foster care allowances in the past year
Nearly two-thirds of local authorities in Scotland have frozen their allowances in the past year
A third of fostering services have had the same allowance for seven years
Three local authorities in Scotland have had the same allowances for ten years or more.

This year’s key findings mirror last year’s, when the charity called for a national minimum allowance to be implemented by April 2022.

Jacqueline Cassidy, director of The Fostering Network Scotland, said:

“The continuing delay in the introduction of a national minimum allowance has had a direct impact on children in care and the foster carers who look after them. We need to help children and young people in care thrive.

The report follows the Fostering Network’s State of the Nation Foster Care 2021 survey (click here to access) which saw foster carers highlight the financial challenges and strain many of them were under due to a lack of sufficient funding and ongoing concerns over the impact of the cost-of-living crisis.

Ms Cassidy continued:

“Around half of foster carers in Scotland already stated in our State of the Nation Foster Care survey 2021 survey, that the allowances they are given do not cover the costs of looking after a child, meaning they must dip into their own pockets. With inflation rates and the cost of living having significantly increased since then, the situation has only become worse. We are concerned that the cost-of-living crisis will create a crisis for our children and young people.

“Foster carers provide children who can no longer live with their birth families with stability, security and a positive and supportive home environment. Ensuring they are supported must be a priority. The Scottish Government needs to introduce a national minimum allowance now. This is a matter of urgency and cannot be delayed any further.”

Campaign for a national minimum allowance

In Scotland, approximately 4,500 children were living with foster families at the end of July 2021 in 3,540 approved foster care households. This accounts for approximately three-quarters of children in care looked after away from home and family.

Foster carers receive a weekly fostering allowance to cover the cost of caring for the child. Costs include food, clothes, toiletries, travel and all other expenses incurred. Allowances vary depending on the age of the child and usually increase on an annual basis in line with the cost of living and inflation. Scotland is currently the only country in the UK not to have a national minimum allowance.

A long-standing campaign by The Fostering Network, along with its members, led to a commitment in the 2016 Scottish National Party manifesto to implement a national minimum allowance for foster carers. A review of care allowances was conducted in 2017-18. A national minimum allowance is yet to be implemented.

‘Transfer of power’ vital in securing positive outcomes for care experienced young people

Media Release

12 October 2022

Supportive relationships, appropriate housing, and adults transferring decision-making power are key to securing good outcomes for care experienced young people, according to a report published today.

The report marks the conclusion of the evaluation of the Home and Belonging (H&B) initiative, led by Children in Scotland and Staf (the Scottish Throughcare and Aftercare Forum).

The initiative challenged the status quo which sees many care experienced young people endure broken tenancies, isolation in the community and spells of homelessness.

Managed at the outset by the Life Changes Trust, H&B funded 11 projects to explore innovative ways of providing housing support to those with experience of care as they moved into their first home. It aimed to improve experiences of home, connections in the community and transitions from care.

Click here to download and read the Final Report

The report identifies the following as being essential in improving wellbeing and security for care experienced young people:

Adults giving up decision-making power to young people with care experience

A rights-based, participative approach to decision-making about anything that affects young people with care experience should become the norm
Lessons should be learned about the way corporate parenting boards operate. Young people with care experience must be actively involved with a clear role
The voices of young people with care experience must be at the heart of driving change.

Relationships and support

Meaningful relationships with trusted professionals, and the value of this in a housing context, must be recognised
The impact supportive relationships with professionals had on young people’s ability to engage with services and maintain tenancies, and how positive relationships with peers and in the community translated to wellbeing, also needs to be recognised.

Availability of high-quality, suitable housing

There must be a wider range of housing options as young people leave care
Housing must have essentials and be in a decent condition when people move in. Young people should also be able to personalise their space.
Housing policy and processes should be more trauma-informed and responsive.

A rights-based participative approach prioritising care experienced young people’s voices was central to the project. In its first year, Children in Scotland and Staf worked with three young people with experience of care to develop the project approach.

In Year 3 Children in Scotland employed a Project Assistant with experience of care to support the development of the evaluation and be involved in the final analysis.

David Mackay, Children in Scotland’s Policy & Projects Manager, and Home and Belonging project lead, said:

“Despite challenges presented by the pandemic, Home and Belonging produced many examples of how a model based on participation and lived experience can deliver for care experienced young people.

“On the back of these findings, we believe there is potential for continued embedding of participation and a transfer of decision-making from adults to young people so they can be more involved in decisions about their lives.

“Children in Scotland and Staf would like everyone committed to supporting care experienced young people to take forward the learning from Home and Belonging and support this participative approach. It needs to become the norm.”

Jo Derrick, Chief Executive of Staf, said:

“There are few things in life as important as having a sense of home and belonging. Too often we hear from young people with care experience of the challenges they face having even their most basic needs met in this regard.

"Staf is proud to have worked with Children in Scotland on the Home and Belonging initiative to ensure young people’s voice has been integral to the evaluation and the subsequent key findings and recommendations.

“We stand ready to support Scotland to take these recommendations forward. We want to ensure that relationships, and a recognition that young people are experts in their own lives, are viewed as having equal importance to high-quality provision of housing.”

The report also sets out a series of recommendations Children in Scotland and Staf are asking national and local decision-makers and practitioners and organisations working with young people with experience of care to take forward. These include:

National decision-makers

Embed the principles of The Promise into national policy, in particular ensuring this supports ongoing, meaningful relationships
Take steps to ensure appropriate housing stock is available across the country
Consider how national legislation, policy and guidance can support people to access secure tenancies as they leave care.

Local decision-makers

Ensure a diverse range of housing options within local authorities
Consider ‘elastic tolerance’ approaches to housing policy to ensure trauma-informed options can be embedded
Ensure a trauma-informed, relationship-based approach is available for young people with experience of care as they move into their first home.

Practitioners and organisations working with young people with experience of care:

Develop knowledge and understanding of housing options and support locally and discuss these with young people with experience of care as they approach the stage of moving to their first home
Embed relationship-based practice in work by ensure appropriate CPD opportunities are available.

To support learning from the initiative, advice and recommendations for decision-makers and practitioners and organisations working with people with experience of care has been compiled in the report.

This have been developed from work evaluating the initiative and includes views from the engagement with staff at the funded projects in the final year of the evaluation.

See the Notes for Editors section below for further background information about the project.

(ends)

Media contact: Chris Small – email csmall@childreninscotland.org.uk

Notes for editors

Project background

The £3 million Home and Belonging initiative was devised by the Life Changes Trust to explore innovative approaches to improving young people’s experiences as they move on from care and into their own homes.

Eleven projects across Scotland received funding from the Life Changes Trust, with the majority funded for a three-year period. All the projects were designed in collaboration with young people with care experience and involved them in their project delivery.

The main aims of the projects were to support young people to feel increased levels of security and stability, and to help them to find a strong sense of home and belonging in their communities. The projects hoped to offer young people more choice and agency in relation to where and how they lived when they moved on from care.

Children in Scotland and Staf (the Scottish Throughcare and Aftercare Forum) conducted an independent evaluation of the Home and Belonging initiative between August 2019 and August 2022. Through paid employment opportunities, the voices of young people with care experience played a significant role in shaping our evaluation activity and final evaluation outputs.

Click here for more information on the project

About Staf

Staf (Scottish Throughcare and Aftercare Forum) is Scotland’s national membership organisation for all of those involved in the lives of young people leaving care. Our vision is that the wellbeing and success of young people leaving care across Scotland is indistinguishable from that of their peers in the general population. Together we can make that happen.

Click here for more

About Children in Scotland

Giving all children in Scotland an equal chance to flourish is at the heart of everything we do.

By bringing together a network of people working with and for children, alongside children and young people themselves, we offer a broad, balanced and independent voice. We create solutions, provide support and develop positive change across all areas affecting children in Scotland.

We do this by listening, gathering evidence, and applying and sharing our learning, while always working to uphold children’s rights. Our range of knowledge and expertise means we can provide trusted support on issues as diverse as the people we work with and the varied lives of children and families in Scotland.

Click here for more

Home and Belonging final report

Learning from the project and calls about how to support and empower care experienced young people

Click here to read

Scottish Throughcare and Aftercare Forum

Find out more about Staf, our project partner on the Home and Belonging initiative

Click here to read

Key findings

A summary from the project of positive ways care experienced young people can be supported when moving into their first home

Click here to read more

Case studies

Four case studies which share stories and insights from across the Home and Belonging initiative

Click here to read more

Methodology

A breakdown of the evaluation approach which was used across the three years of the project

Click here to read more

Year One Progress Report

Download the report to find out about key learning from the initiative in 2019-20

Click here to read

The Promise

Find out about work to deliver on the change demanded by the findings of the Independent Care Review, a key area of crossover with the Home and Belonging project

Click here for more

Life Changes Trust (2013-2022)

Information about the charity that originally managed the Home and Belonging project

Click here for more

Our projects

Our project work is underpinned by a commitment to children's rights and participation

Click here for more

Participation Guidelines

Our guidelines for participation with young people were updated in 2022

Click here to read

A black and white image of a person wearing glasses and a jacket with a string of large beads around their neck. They have dark curly hair to shoulder length

Comment: We've promised change. Now it's time to deliver

Posted 11 Aug, 2022 by Jennifer Drummond

A recent report has highlighted the unmet needs of young people in foster care, as well as the lack of support for foster carers. Something needs to change, writes Jacqueline Cassidy (pictured)

Foster care provides children with stability and security and offers some children their first positive experience of family life. It can help to improve children's mental wellbeing and educational outcomes. However, children's needs can't fully be met if the support they need from other services isn’t readily available to them.

The Fostering Network’s latest report (click here to read) shows that we are still failing to meet some of our children and young people’s most basic needs and uphold their rights, particularly when it comes to their health, education and cultural identity.

State of the Nation's Foster Care

The report is based on results from the State of the Nation’s Foster Care 2021 survey, which provides the most comprehensive insight into fostering in Scotland and across the UK. It gathers the views of foster carers who are providing support and care to thousands of children and young people. Their view strongly indicates that both local and national government are failing to meet their responsibility as a parent to these children.

Key findings are:

A quarter of foster carers were looking after at least one child who they felt needed mental health support but was not getting it.
Fifty-four per cent of foster carers were looking after at least one child who receives additional support to assist their learning. Of these foster carers, a quarter felt that the additional support was not sufficient.
Thirteen per cent of foster carers reported having looked after a child with suspected Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD).
Nine per cent of foster carers reported having looked after a child with a diagnosis of FASD, however, only a third received follow-up support post-diagnosis.
Fifty-five per cent of foster carers had not received any support or advice around supporting a child’s cultural and/or religious needs.
Scotland continues to have no minimum allowances for children’s needs despite multiple commitments from the Scottish Government.

Responsibilities of the state

Foster carers are dedicated to transforming children’s lives – but they cannot do this alone.

We are calling on national and local government across Scotland to ensure that children living in foster care are able to access all the services they are entitled to, and so desperately need; and that they are listened to by all agencies working with them.

Awareness-raising, training and support

We need to invest in awareness-raising, training and therapeutic approaches. This is so practitioners across all public sector organisations that support children have the understanding and skills they need to best support children with care experience.

Furthermore, we want to see a learning and development framework for foster carers introduced, such as that already in place in Wales, so foster carers can access the learning and development they feel they need to ensure the children in their care can thrive.

Working for change

So what are we doing? We continue to lobby the Scottish Government to introduce minimum allowances for children that are at least as good as the best allowances available in Scotland.

We are raising awareness and providing support to our members to positively engage with The Promise. Internally, we’ve committed to a review of our organisational language and framing of care so we can work towards eradicating the stigmatisation of care experience, and we’re investing in trauma training for our staff team.

The Fostering Network also continue to develop our participation opportunities for children and young people so we can protect and uphold their right to express their views and be heard. Most recently, we’ve launched a recruitment campaign to establish an advisory board of young people with experience of foster care or as a child of a foster carer, who will guide and inform some of our work.

In addition, we provide training and support to foster carers, and services and all those in the fostering community. We want to nurture and support those adults who care for our children and young people so that foster care is a positive, loving and supportive experience that meets children and young people’s needs, and helps them thrive.

Foster carers provide children who can no longer live with their birth families with stability, security and a positive and supportive home environment. They help young people recover from trauma and encourage them to believe in and fulfil their potential. But they need to be supported by other services and with adequate funding.

We have committed to change, now we owe it to them to deliver.

Jacqueline Cassidy is Director of Practice and Scotland at The Fostering Network
Click here to find out more

25 & Up: After a year of adversity, change is coming – and we know Scotland is more determined than ever to Keep the Promise

9 February 2021

Chair of the Promise Oversight Board Fiona Duncan revisits her original 25 Calls campaign call, updates on the Plan, and hails everyone who has campaigned so hard to keep the Care Review on track

It’s almost four years after the launch of the Independent Care Review, two years on from the start of Children in Scotland’s 25 Calls campaign, and a year since The Care Review published its conclusions and a vision for the Scotland that together we could be. Driven by the voices of thousands of care experienced babies, infants, children, adults and families as well as the paid and unpaid workforce, the demand was for a Scotland where every child grows up loved, safe and respected.

When I contributed to the 25 Calls campaign in autumn 2018, the Care Review had been running for 18 months. It had already listened to the experiences of care from more than 1000 infants, children, young people and adults across Scotland. Discovery Stage had concluded with the emergence of 10 thematic areas that required deeper understanding and the Journey stage of the work was underway.

The Care Review had also developed its 12 intentions which included supporting families to stay together; protecting relationships significant to infants, children and young people; aftercare available for as long as needed; children and young people’s rights and voices meaningfully impacting decision-making; understanding the financial and human cost of care, including what happens when people don’t get the help they need; care services planning and working together; and tackling stigma in all its forms.

When it concluded, just over a year later, the change the Care Review called for was vast and urgently needed. Its challenge was met with equally all-encompassing support and enthusiasm: from the care experienced community, organisations and individuals across sectors and industries, politicians, community leaders and the press.

The Promise was made.

One year on and the world is different in terrible and unexpected ways. Our lives are dominated by restrictions and fear – fear of transmission, fear for loved ones, fear of what comes next. For too many life has become even more difficult.

But Scotland’s commitment to #KeepThePromise has remained. There is much still to be done and hard decisions and actions to be taken. But foundations have been laid and change is underway.

Despite unanticipated adversity, the schedule laid out a year ago in The Promise report called the plan (click to read) hasn’t slipped. Massive effort from organisations, individuals, government, and those who campaigned so hard for the Care Review have kept it on track.

Set up in July of last year, The Promise team has pursued the massive task of engaging and working with everyone who needs to #KeepThePromise and more than 100 organisations have outlined how they will change, including local authorities and community planning partnership, Children’s Hearings Scotland, the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration, the Care Inspectorate plus NHS trusts, charities and many, many more.

These commitments have shaped the draft of one single, multi-agency, cross-sector, collectively owned three-year Plan for Scotland, detailing what must happen for the promise to be kept. This will be supported by annual rolling Change Programmes detailing how this will happen, by who and when.

The Promise Oversight Board (click to find out more) – a 20 strong assembly, more than half of whom have care experience, and who will hold Scotland to account – has been recruited and met as a group for the first time.

The Promise Design School, which will pilot in the next couple of months, will give people with care experience the training and skills to collaborate and design public services. With the Pinky Promise Design School following closely afterwards to capture children’s ideas on change that can happen now.

The Promise Partnership, a £4m investment from Scottish Government, opened for applications on 1^st February.

The care community called for change and Scotland answered the call. There is no place for complacency and some of the bigger, harder and more painful calls are still to come. But I am as full of hope as I was last year and I feel that hope reflected back in the actions of those who have pledged to #KeepThePromise. Hope fuels change – and change is here.

Fiona Duncan is Chair of the Promise Oversight Board