Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will meet with Barnardo’s to discuss developing a Black Foster Care Network to improve the experiences of Black children in care.

The government would like to see people from all backgrounds feel able to come forward to foster, whatever their ethnicity, sexuality, gender or relationship status.

Children should be cared for in a way that recognises and respects their identity and carers should be given the training and support they need to meet the child’s needs.

The department considers charity sector colleagues to be key stakeholders in work taking place across the department, including on children’s social care reform as outlined in ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’. The department regularly engage the Chief Executive and Policy Leads from Barnardo’s on children’s social care policy (as well as their counterparts at Action for Children, The Children’s Society, National Children’s Bureau and NSPCC). The charity sector is also represented in a variety of reference groups on specific aspects of children’s social care policy.

The department will engage with foster carer representative bodies to see how black foster carers can be further supported, including considering developing a Black Foster Care Network.