Department for Education awards over £1m for regional fostering recruitment collaboration

Five local authorities are set to receive Department for Education funding of more than £1m to boost foster carer recruitment in the region, to help provide stable family homes to more children.

Blackburn with Darwen, Cumberland Council, Westmorland and Furness Council, Blackpool Council and Lancashire County Council have been successful in a regional bid to become a pathfinder for the Regional Fostering Recruitment and Retention Hub.

The Pathfinder has been awarded £1.2 million and will help others learn how to successfully implement regional approaches – nationally.

Blackburn with Darwen Council are the lead local authority and will collaborate with the other LAs to tackle a foster carer recruitment crisis in the North West of England.

Funded by the Department for Education (DfE), the hub will act as a first point of contact for those interested in fostering. Over the next two years, the government has pledged to deliver a fostering recruitment and retention programme so foster care is available for more children who need it.

Councillor Julie Gunn, Blackburn with Darwen Council’s Executive Member for Children, Young People and Education, said:

We welcome this funding announcement from the government and are excited to act as the lead agency to partner with other local authorities in the North West.

With declining Foster Carer numbers and an increase in need for stable homes for our most vulnerable children, we really need an initiative to encourage more people in to foster care.

We hope that this collaboration in foster care recruitment will support, enable and empower our foster carers to care for all our children in loving family homes.

The hub’s aim will be to build upon regional relationships to achieve a shared vision for foster care.

Launching by April 2024, it will also help carers make an informed choice about how fostering could work for them and to guide them through the approval process.

In total there will be 10 similar clusters running this programme across the country, comprised of 98 local authorities.

For those interested in fostering in BwD please visit https://www.letsfoster.co.uk to find out more about fostering with your local authority.