Care system denies fostered children a proper childhood

A new report from the Fostering Network has claimed that children in care are being denied the chance to experience a full and proper childhood because too many foster carers are not allowed to make basic decisions.

According to the Fostering Network's research:

• 17% of foster carers cannot decide if a child can get their haircut,
• 30% cannot give permission for a child to stay over with a friend, and
• 17% cannot allow a child to go on a school trip.

Instead foster carers have to ask social workers who are invariably required to seek the approval of a senior manager who may not know the child or their foster carer.

Robert Tapsfield, chief executive at the Fostering Network, said: “We hear far too many examples of children missing out on the essential experiences of childhood because their foster carers are not allowed to make basic decisions. One girl wanted to go on a school trip, but because it took 16 weeks for the local authority to give permission she couldn’t go. That is ridiculous and the system has to change.”

“Foster carers are almost always best placed to make day-to-day decisions about the children they foster. Social workers need to be able to advise and support foster carers. It is a waste of time for social workers and senior managers to be making these basic decisions.”

Through its Like Everyone Else campaign, the Fostering Network is recommending that day-to-day decision making should be automatically delegated to foster carers unless otherwise specified, and that all four UK governments should run programmes to help local authorities to put this into practice.