Why Care is a new approach to assessing, preparing and supporting those who want to be foster carers that draws together the experience of those with lived and learned knowledge foster care.
The purpose of this is to refocus the emphasis on what those with care experience, foster carers and social workers tell us is most important for foster carers to be able to provide stable, loving homes. It will also look to gather more data throughout the process about those who withdraw from the assessment or within the first year and those who continue, so more targeted support and preparation can be offered to foster carers, and LAs can benefit from a deeper understanding of this.
Why Care is initially working with one local authority to pilot the Why Care’s proposed new elements of the assessment process. Why Care wants to work with all interested parties to improve the current processes for assessment and support to increase the number and readiness of local authority foster carers.