Essex County Council is set to launch a new campaign in the New Year to get more people into fostering because it faces a “major problem” if the number of foster families does not increase in the county. It says that as the number of children coming into care increases, it needs to dramatically increase the number of foster beds in Essex, which it says is proving increasingly difficult with its current approach. In Essex, there were 410 local authority-managed foster households in 2023/24 - down from 415 last year and 510 in 2019/2020.
In 2023/2024 the number of newly approved households stood at 35 - up from the 30 approved last year but down from the 105 approved in 2019/2020. Cabinet member Councillor John Spence added that residential care is more than 10 times more expensive than placing a child with a foster family. The council has said it will not reach the target of 74 per cent of all children in care to be placed in foster placements by 2028 and the target of 95 per cent of all the children in fostering to be placed in Essex County Council’s in-house fostering provision.
The county has 800 children being fostered in Essex, of whom 688 were at the last count through internal fostering - where they have the benefit of all the training and support packages that the council can offer - at a cost of around £26,000 a year. The remainder are with independent foster agencies who charge around double that. Read more: The beautiful Essex park with huge woodland and pret.
