Newport Council reviews its foster care arrangements

NEWPORT council needs to recruit more in-house foster carers to reduce the need to place children with outside agencies, a review has found.

An assessment of the service carried out by a team of staff from social services, education, health and leisure as well as independent agencies, found it was a good service with a number of strengths including a stable and experienced fostering team.

But it also found a number of areas needed to be developed, including a need to recruit and develop in-house foster carers to ensure more consistent standards and to save money on placing children with independent foster agencies.

The authority employs 134 foster carers for the 204 children currently in its care system.

But a report to councillors says it aims to increase this to 163 in the next few months and to 196 over the next two years.

It plans to do this by increasing the financial offer available to foster carers so they are not only acknowledged for the number of children they looked after but also for the skills they posses.

As well as saving money by bringing children back into the care of the council, the increase in in-house carers could allow Newport to offer placements to children from other local authorities to help generate income, the report says.

Other planned improvements include creating a team of staff to better match the needs of children with the skills of those looking after them, creating two new posts for recruiting potential foster carers as well as provided more training to existing ones.

The proposals were noted by members of the council’s overview and scrutiny forum for young people’s service on December 19 and will be discussed again in the new year before any decision on implementing the changes is made.