"Urgent" search for foster carers for siblings as care "crisis" continues

Friday 20 October 2023

The Government has launched an "urgent" appeal for foster carers for siblings as the care "crisis" continues – with "multiple groups of siblings" in Jersey currently in need of carers with the "space and desire to foster siblings".

When siblings can grow up together in a family environment, it provides them with stability and a sense of family, and improves their long-term outcomes, the Government says.

However, the island has been continuously struggling to recruit enough foster carers, despite numerous campaigns.

In the recently published draft Government Plan, £6.8m has been allocated over the next four years to run two new children's homes "to meet the unanticipated urgent needs of children in care".

And more than £3.5m was spent last year on placing local children into homes off-island, despite it being a "last resort" option.

Pictured: More than £3.5m was spent last year on placing local children into homes off-island.

Earlier this year, a response to a request made under the Freedom of Information law revealed that, in 2022, there were 20 children in placements off-island – a figure that has changed little over the past three years.

Costing an average of £178,000 per child, the number of placements last year was only one fewer than the year before, but two more than in 2020.

Specialist care providers putting up their prices and a need for more intensive support contributed to an extra £1m being spent on funding these homes outside the island last year – despite little increase in the number of children being sent away.

This year to date, there have been 17 children being looked after in the UK, the figures showed.

This was despite Children's Minister Inna Gardiner launching an urgent appeal for intensive foster carers last year, stating that Jersey "not seen a crisis like this in fostering and adoption for 10 years". Just four people came forward as a result.

Pictured: Last year, Children’s and Education Minister Inna Gardiner described a "crisis" in foster care.

Efforts to reduce the number of children being placed off-island stretch as far back as 2018, when an inspection of Children's Services by Ofsted found that, despite it being a "last resort" option, as many as a quarter of children in care had to be split from their families and friends and sent away from Jersey because there weren’t enough appropriate placements in Jersey.

This, they found, was mainly due to a lack of appropriate facilities locally and fostering placements – despite multiple campaigns by the Fostering and Adoption team.

Concerns over the lack of appropriate care facilities have also been raised numerous times by Jersey's Royal Court, which has to approve such placements.

In 2019, the Government created a new 'intensive fostering' service in an attempt to avoid having to send the island’s “more challenging children and young people” to care institutions off-island.

And this summer, the Government launched a fresh campaign for full-time intensive foster carers, offering a salary of over £56,000 a year for those willing to take on the role.

It was confirmed today that, in the first half of this year, Fostering and Adoption received 24 enquiries from people who are considering becoming foster carers.

GET IN TOUCH...

The Government of Jersey is urgently calling on people who have the space and desire to foster siblings to get in touch.

Foster carers do not need previous experience of caring for children and young people. They do not need to own their own home, or be married or in a civil partnership to apply.

Anyone over the age 21 is eligible to become a foster carer and there is no upper age limit.

Find out more HERE.