Fostering

As we continue to make progress with the disaggregation of internal fostering resources, we have continued to have a hosted fostering service which covers the Cumberland Council and Westmorland and Furness Council. In total there are 219 mainstream foster families. 8 fostering households have joined us in the last 12 months and 18 have de-registered. The main reason for de-registration is due to retirement. As with most fostering services we have an older cohort of foster carers therefore it remains a key priority for us to continuity recruit new carers to replace those who have moved on to retirement. 

In 2023 to 2024 we have made progress with our plans to develop a Regional Fostering Hub - ‘Foster with Us’. We have partnered with Westmorland and Furness Council, Blackburn, Blackpool and Lancashire as part of the regional approach to Fostering Recruitment and Retention Hub. The recruitment hub will work alongside us to generate a regional communications approach and engage with prospective foster carers from their initial enquiry through to their application streamlining the process and looking at supporting carers through the pre-approval stages. The assessment of foster carers remains the responsibility of the local authority.

As part of the overall recruitment strategy for foster carers Cumberland Council have received funding from the DfE to implement their first Mockingbird constellation. The principles behind the mockingbird are that of nurturing the relationships between children, young people and foster families supporting them to build a resilient and caring community of six to ten satellite families. This is called a constellation. Each constellation is supported by a hub carer and a liaison officer. The constellation offers vital peer support and guidance alongside social activities and sleepovers to strengthen relationships and permanence. Following evaluation of its success we are keen to further develop this approach ensuring there is a range of different types of support for foster carers regardless of where they are in their fostering carer. 

We have not wavered on our commitment to support and retain foster carers. Whilst we have continued to roll out training, supervisions, social activities, support groups and the opportunity for carers to take part in different opportunities we have also launched our Foster Carers for Cumbria Project Group. The purpose of this co-production group is to review the recruitment, journey to approval and support and retention of internal foster carers ensuring that the experience of others influences and shapes our recruitment of new carers. The group, which works across the hosted patch includes the fostering manager, communications and engagement lead and carers. The delivery plan is regularly reviewed as part of the meetings and is shaping our foster carers recruitment and retention strategy. We have strengthened our support offer to kinship carers, increasing the number of kinship carers and promoting the ways in which people can move into this role, underpinned by practical and financial support. A kinship transformation plan underpins this work and runs parallel to the work undertaken to support foster carers.

Whilst it is our ambition that where a child or young person cannot live within their family home or family network, we have sufficient in house foster carers to care for our children and young people in the first case. Whilst we recognise that this is not always possible we will do our best to achieve this. We value our relationships with independent fostering agency (IFA’s) and the role they play in helping us meet our sufficiency duty. We aim to work more closely with them when necessary, to find caring families homes and prevent unnecessary moves into residential care. However, it is our ambition that where a child or young person cannot live withing their family home or family network we have sufficient in house foster carers to care for our children and young people in the first case. Whilst we have seen a 2% rise in the use of IFA’s in the last year we continue to be below the national average, however this rise has helped us keep children in a family home. 

Improving sufficiency

Using the Foster Carers Annual Reviews to strategically explore carer capacity and encourage stretching approval/expanding approval when appropriate to meet the needs of children and young people with a disability, teenagers, larger sibling families and separated young people. Exploring opportunities to increase bedroom capacity of known and valued foster carers by developing opportunities which can fund adaptations of carers homes. 

Continued roll out of training to foster carers, in particular training which links to understanding and responding to trauma, life story and responding and supporting complex needs, which will in turn increase foster carers confidence when caring for children and young people, maintain stability and improve the overall lived experiences of our cared for children and young people. 

Maximisation of foster carer recruitment and retention through our targeted strategy to ensure wherever possible children and young people are able to live with our in house foster carers. This includes the recruitment of foster carers who can care for mothers/fathers and their baby as part of a fostering family. 

Launch the first mockingbird constellation. 

Strengthen our holistic approach to foster home stability, engaging all stakeholders involved with the child and foster carer utilising our resilience team. 

Strengthen and broker a closer relationship with Cumberland’s providers to increase access to local families, embedding a Cumberland first approach. 

Launch of new approach to long-term fostering - strengthening matching, simplifying processes, and providing proportionate planning that best meets the needs of each individual child.