FOSTER care provision continues to be a real struggle in Dumfries and Galloway – but there have been positive developments recently.
A recruitment drive is being maintained and several new families look close to welcoming children into their home.
This was confirmed in the annual 2023/24 report recently produced by Dumfries and Galloway Council’s chief social work officer Stephen Morgan.
He wrote: “For our fostering and residential care, we have faced challenges in foster carer availability.
“This is a nationwide issue and has meant more children have ended up being matched with carers further from home.
“We have an ongoing recruitment of foster carers, with six families currently undergoing fostering assessments.
“We are also reviewing our residential provision working with local providers to try and keep children within Dumfries and Galloway so they can have regular family time and it is easier to work towards a rehabilitation plan.”
A shortage of foster carers has been a big issue in Dumfries and Galloway and beyond for several years now.
Dumfries and Galloway Council has invested heavily in trying to solve its foster care crisis.
This time last year, social work bosses reported that allocating an extra £392,000 to facilitate a rise in fees for foster carers had been successful in recruiting more people to look after children in the region.
However, this progress was effectively cancelled out because eight foster carers deregistered last year.
This year, there has been some more financial support to improve child care provision.
Mr Morgan explained: “To alleviate some of the pressure, we have recently been successful in securing additional budget to introduce a dedicated kinship care team, regeneration of intensive support foster carers and introduction of intensive support – outreach team.
“This is an exciting opportunity to progress over the coming year.”
In 2023/24 there have been 12 fostering and adoption permanence panels. A total of 29 presentations were made to the permanence panel and 13 children were presented as a match.
There were ten kinship care panels where 11 new kinship care arrangements were approved for a total of 11 children.
In addition, there were 20 kinship carers de-registered due to children returning to birth parents and others moving on to live independently.
