Foster families needed

The region has been struggling with a shortage of foster carers in recent years, prompting Dumfries and Galloway Council to do more promotion and offer better financial incentives for people who step forward.
Foster carers in this region were once only entitled to a weekly allowance of between £184 for youngsters aged 11-15 and £224 for those aged 16 and above. However, at the end of last year councillors agreed to introduce an additional payment of £167.68 per week for foster carers.
This has resulted in more interest from people in the role, but there is still more work to be done to provide enough placements for children and young people in the region.
At last week’s social work committee, North West Dumfries Councillor Paula Stevenson asked: “In foster care, we have added in the extra payment, but what are we actually doing in the community to try and actively recruit more foster carers?”
Chief social work officer Lillian Cringles said: “We recognised that we had a challenge around how we financially supported our foster parents, and that’s why we made the changes around how we encourage folks to become foster parents, and how we support them through that.
“The fostering and adoption team offer a significant amount of different levels of support to our foster carers.
“We run seminars, groups, we have sessions with them to support them in their role and function because a significant amount of our requirements would not be done without that support of foster parents and kinship carers.
“We do run regular campaigns to encourage folks to come and work in Dumfries and Galloway as foster parents and kinship carers.
“There is an ongoing challenge around where some national organisations will offer better terms and conditions, and that’s a national issue that all local authorities face.
“But what we offer is support, training, and a 24-hour helpline for our foster parents to be able to access support as and when they need it.”
Social work committee chairman, Councillor Andy Ferguson, asked specifically about what PR and advertising work is underway to attract more foster carers.
Stephen Morgan, senior manager with the council’s children and families section, replied: “We’ve recently run targeted advertising and also had some social media presence over the summertime. That’s where we’ve seen an increase in the number of assessments we’re currently doing.
“We will ordinarily repeat that a minimum of every six months, but it really depends on the workload of the team at the time, what the need is, and we might accelerate that and bring it forward.
“So, currently we’re looking at January or February for a new campaign.”