Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to share innovative practices in foster carer recruitment among local authorities.
As set out in ‘Fostering Better Outcomes (2018)’, we are providing seed funding for feasibility studies in commissioning and sufficiency planning, bringing together local authorities with their partners to explore innovative practices, including collaborative approaches to foster care recruitment.
In addition, the department is also commissioning research on applying behavioural insight approaches to the recruitment of prospective foster carers and adopters. We will use this research to support the sector in developing evidence-based recruitment approaches.