The campaign, spearheaded by Children’s Minister Josh MacAlister, targets adults in their 30s and 40s to “open their hearts and homes”. MacAlister drew parallels to the Homes for Ukraine scheme, hoping to spark a “massive national moment” where potential foster carers step forward. “Unless we rapidly, dramatically expand the foster care system, we will end up with children waking up every single day in residential care who could be in a family home,” he said.
The campaign is a response to stark trends. The number of fostering households has dropped 10% since 2021, and more than one in three foster carers are now aged 60 or over. Of the 81,770 looked-after children in England, around 56,400 are in foster care at any given time.
Viennetta Basterfield, who fostered over 100 children over two decades in west London, worries about the future. She said the bureaucracy around the process is putting people off, and younger generations have more reservations about juggling fostering with caring for their own children. “The greatest gift you can give a child is to show them that they matter,” she said.
To broaden the pool, the government is trialling flexible care models including short-term “respite fostering” and weekend fostering. The Prime Minister’s wife, Marie-France van Heel, revealed she had once wanted to foster but was put off by her husband’s job and the feeling she had to “transform myself into a different type of person”. She expressed hope the campaign would dispel such misconceptions.
New research by the Coram Institute for Children suggests a significant reservoir of goodwill exists, finding that over half a million adults want to foster and an estimated 3.4 million are interested. The government hopes to translate that interest into 10,000 new foster care placements by the end of this parliament.