A Place to Call Home: Understanding what makes a good home for children in care across the UK
Every child in the care system deserves a safe, loving home. They should receive the highest quality care, in a home that is well-matched to their individual needs, so that they can thrive.
Unfortunately this is not the case for every child in care – with consequences for children's day-to-day lives and long-term outcomes. In our ‘A Place To Call Home’ series of reports for each UK nation, we look at what makes a high-quality home, and what steps governments can take to make them a reality for every child in care.
Our series of reports covers each UK nation and their individual policy context
It’s widely recognised that care systems across the UK are failing to deliver good experiences and outcomes for every child in care.
Currently there aren’t enough of the right types of home - foster or residential - in the right parts of the country, to meet children’s needs. Too many children are in inappropriate homes, without the right support, without stability, and without the ability to nurture key relationships. Supply is unable to meet demand.
Much has been said in recent years about the need to address sufficiency issues, and – in England, Scotland and Wales – to reform the market. However, less focus has been given to the importance of delivering consistently high-quality homes for children.
Furthermore, at a UK-wide policy level, we lack a fully-developed, shared understanding of what constitutes ‘quality’ – what makes a good home. In that context, there’s no guarantee that an increase in the supply of homes would lead to an improvement in their quality. A child’s experience of their home, and their outcomes, are linked to the quality of their care and their wider environment.
In this series of reports, covering each UK nation and their individual policy context, we set out to understand views on ‘quality’ among those closest to the issue: care-experienced people and the professionals involved in delivering their care. Our findings are based on focus groups and interviews with care-experienced young people and Action for Children service staff; a staff survey; and national polling of care-experienced people.
[At 15] I was in a home that had 14 girls – there aren't enough staff in the world for that many young people in one place…Homes need to make sure that they're able to individually cater. Too often, young people are taken on as an experiment [by care providers]. It seems to be like, “Well, if it doesn’t work out they’ll find them somewhere else”. But a child shouldn’t have to move because people…aren’t able to meet their needs.
A young person
We're calling on UK governments to help more children in care have what every child needs
We’re calling on UK governments to take immediate action on children’s social care, so children in care get the high-quality homes, love, and support they need to thrive. Across the UK, there is a need to create more good homes, to invest in a skilled and caring workforce, and to ensure the voices of children and young people are heard.
See below for summary recommendations from each nation or read the respective report for the full recommendations.
England
We're asking the UK government to:
- Invest in creating more, higher-quality homes for children.
- Better understand what homes are available, where, so children can be matched with the best home for them.
- Boost recruitment and provide quality support for carers.
- Bolster advocacy and other services that champion children's needs and voices.
- Invest in other services that support children in care - like health and education.
- Ensure Ofsted inspections are helping to improve the quality of care.
- Improve the information we gather so we can make sure we're giving children what they need.
Read the report for the full recommendations (pp. 28 - 29).
Scotland
We’re calling for the Scottish government to take urgent steps to meet its promise to care-experienced children and young people, starting with three key recommendations:
- Accelerate commissioning process reform so that every young person can be matched appropriately with the right home for as long as they need it.
- Invest in sustainable, long-term funding to make sure the right homes are available and staffed by caring, loving, and skilled people who can build relationships with young people.
- Guarantee better advocacy access and consultation processes to ensure the voices of those care experienced children and young people with disabilities are heard, listened to, and acted on.
Northern Ireland
- Urgently prioritise anti-poverty legislation and increase investment in early help and family support.
- Fully commit to carrying out Recommendation 7 of the review to introduce a region-wide children and families’ arms-length body to improve accountability, coordination, and action on the wider reforms necessary for children’s social care.
- Release coordinated capital investment for public and voluntary sector provision of residential care and fostering.
- Urgently and specifically increase housing options and supply available for over-18s with care experience.
- Boost and stabilise residential workforce to include better pay and working conditions, using multidisciplinary teams with mixed skill sets, and emphasising trauma-informed training and practice.
- Improve the recruitment, training, support, and retention of foster carers (including kinship carers).
- Continue to support public and voluntary partners working together to develop improved fostering regulations and standards.
- Ensure children and young people are involved in the decisions being made about their care journey.
- Improve and extend transition support for people with care experience in the 18-25 age group.
Read the report to see the recommendations in full.
Wales
The Health and Social Care Bill was introduced to the Senedd on 20 May 2024. It aims to:
- Eliminate private profit from the care of looked after children.
- Enable the introduction of Direct Payments for NHS Continuing Healthcare (CHC).
- Make amendments to ensure that the Regulation and Inspection of Social Care (Wales) Act 2016 and Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 are able to operate fully and effectively.
- Provide additional specialist support for children with complex needs who may be on the edge of care.
- Continue to support and uphold the rights of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and young people.
- Support our national Fostering Wales scheme.
We want to ensure that, as the Health and Social Care Bill passes through the Senedd, policy-makers are informed by experiences of children in care and the staff who care for them.
The report asks that decisionmakers consider:
- Are there enough, appropriate homes for children? That includes ensuring there are enough appropriate homes for children that can’t live with their families.
- Are there the right staff with the right support? The people in the system and their relationships with young people were referenced throughout.
- Do children get the right type of care and support? Staff consistently discussed the actual content of care provided to children. This meant the way they’re included in decisions, activities, and opportunities provided, and whether they could live like children not living in care. The key to this was personalisation.
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