Report: Ethnicity and foster care in English local authorities

An article examined the place of ethnicity in foster care arrangements, in the context of the sufficiency duty on local authorities to secure adequate local placements for children.

It said that when comparing the numbers of Black and minority-ethnic (BME) foster carers both with numbers of BME looked-after children and with local adult populations both measures showed very wide variation.

A significant minority of authorities were said to have performed poorly in achieving ethnic diversity of their foster carers. The article discussed the findings in the context of recent policy trends regarding ethnicity in child welfare.