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The government has announced a £12.4 million investment in fostering through a new Fostering Innovation Fund aimed at modernising foster care provision and widening participation among prospective carers.
The funding, which will be distributed to regional care cooperatives and local authority-run fostering hubs across England, forms part of broader reforms intended to increase placement capacity and diversify the pool of foster carers.
The Department for Education said the initiative responds to growing recruitment pressures and changing social and family structures, with ministers acknowledging that traditional assumptions about fostering no longer reflect modern family life.
Children’s minister Josh MacAlister said foster care had too often been framed around “traditional, married relationships with only one carer working full time”, adding that the reforms are intended to attract “a younger and more diverse mixture of carers” while improving support for existing foster families.
The government said the fund would support more flexible approaches to fostering, including respite and weekend-only arrangements, designed to complement residential care and kinship care arrangements.
The investment also forms part of the government’s wider commitment to create 10,000 additional foster care placements during the current Parliament.
Sector organisations welcomed the announcement, particularly the focus on flexibility and collaboration.
NOW Foster chief executive Sara Fernandez said more adaptable fostering arrangements could help build long-term supportive relationships for children while enabling people unable to commit to full-time care to participate in fostering.
Meanwhile, Coram chief executive Dame Carol Homden described the funding as recognition of the fostering sector’s “creativity, commitment and practical innovation”, adding that stronger collaboration between local authorities, independent fostering agencies and third-sector organisations would be essential to improving outcomes for children in care.
The announcement comes amid continuing pressure on the care system and wider efforts to reform children’s social care, including increased emphasis on kinship care, placement sufficiency and early intervention support.
