Children in Care Market Position Statement

We need more carers across all aspects of our family-based foster placements. This includes short breaks, all age groups, sibling groups, respite and parent and child placements.

We have more foster carers leaving the profession than we have new foster carers registering, and a shortfall in sufficiency across all fostering provision including independent fostering agencies. This means that, at times, children whose needs would be best met through fostering are placed in residential children's homes, increasing sufficiency pressures.

We need to increase the diversity of representation within our foster carers to meet the cultural needs of children and young people.

We have developed bespoke materials to increase awareness of our fostering offer and are working as part of the Foster with North East Hub to increase the number of foster carers in the local area.

We are part of regional commissioning frameworks for independent fostering agencies and through this are working to ensure that we have a wide range of providers that can meet the needs of our children and young people.