Now Foster is a not-for-profit start-up
seeking to re-imagine the approach to foster carer recruitment, retention and support. It is working to mainstream foster care, which can enable more
children to live in loving and supportive homes that meet their needs. Foster carer recruitment and retention remain key sector challenges against a backdrop of a rising number of children coming into care and a lack of suitable, local placements. Working with local authorities and charitable IFAs, Now Foster is focused on changing the perception of fostering and the way in which foster carers are recruited and supported in a bid to expand and
diversify the pool of foster carers.
Now Foster’s new service will make use of data analytics to target new groups who have the potential to become foster carers and utilise digital tools to ease the application process. It will also deliver a new wrap-around approach to supporting foster carers which is led by those with experience of foster care or care, with foster carers becoming part of a strong peer network. In the longer term, Now Foster wants to work closely with children, young people and foster carers to improve the experience of care and the voice of the child within this.
Now Foster is piloting its recruitment and retention service in the London Borough of Newham. This is particularly focused on recruiting new demographics who have never considered fostering and need support to design fostering-friendly lives.
Key learning from the
pilot includes:
• We need to proactively help people design a fostering-friendly life → we can do this better by segmenting future foster carers and focusing on very specific groups.
• Weekend fostering is a good entry point for new carers → we can provide a dedicated programme to step into fostering via this route.
• Some types of fostering can attract those with a family
building motivation → we can make the most of the family building interest amongst LGBTQ+ and adopters in order to make fostering attractive to them.
• We need community conversations to normalise fostering → we need a step up in marketing and communication activities, particularly those that maximise opportunities for personal conversations.
• The recruitment process needs to excite people to foster → our recruitment experience has been put together with foster carers
and service designers to achieve this goal. ****