The number of fostering households in England has dropped 10% since 2021, and the foster care population is ageing, with more than one in three foster carers now aged 60 or over. Fostering remains the primary form of care for looked-after children: out of 81,770 looked-after children, about 56,400 are in foster care at any one time.
The appeal will target adults in their 30s and 40s and will run alongside trials of new care models, including short-term "respite fostering" and weekend fostering, which the government hopes will make the role accessible to a wider range of people.
Children's minister Josh MacAlister said he wanted a national moment like the Homes for Ukraine scheme, when hundreds of households opened their homes to refugees. "Lots of families won't be able to do it, but we're trying to open up fostering to a wider group of people, by making it intergenerational or part-time, for instance," he said. He urged families not to wait for the "perfect moment": "You've already got a lot of what it takes. Just step forward and start the process and see where you go."
Speaking at an event at Downing Street on Tuesday, Marie-France van Heel, the prime minister's wife, revealed for the first time that she had wanted to foster children but was put off by her husband's job and by feeling she had to "transform myself into a different type of person" to do it. She said the campaign was about dispelling myths and misconceptions.
Viennetta Basterfield, 67, who fostered more than 100 children in her west London home over two decades before stopping during Covid, said fostering was "the most rewarding thing I've ever done". But she worried that bureaucracy was putting people off and that younger generations had more reservations, especially about juggling fostering with caring for their own children.
New research by the Coram Institute for Children found over half a million adults want to foster, with an estimated 3.4 million interested.