When people ask me whether they should foster with their Local Authority (LA) or an Independent Fostering Agency (IFAs), I’m able to answer from some experience. First having worked as a Fostering Support Worker and as an Enquiry Officer within the recruitment team and then also having seen it first hand with my in-laws who were Foster Carers and moved between an agency and their Local Authority.
In my role as a fostering support worker, I had countless conversations with foster carers who had previously been with IFAs. One conversation I remember was with a couple who told me they felt 'kept at arm’s length' in their agency. They said they rarely knew what was happening with the child’s long-term plan and often felt out of the loop and that no one was really communicating with each other.
They transferred to us after having an in-depth conversation with the child in their cares ßÙßÇÂþ» Social Worker and realising it would be easier to remove the middleman. They commented on how different it was us and how involved they felt. They felt they finally understood what was happening and why and felt better able to support their foster child. They also really benefitted from the local support groups and building a close community of other foster carers around them, something they hadn’t had with their agency.
I saw the opposite too with my in-laws, they initially started fostering with their Local Authority but transferred to an IFA after being lured by the promise of generous allowances and specialist support. They eventually returned to the LA because they missed the sense of community and found that the ‘specialist support’ never materialised, the grass wasn’t actually greener.
As an Enquiry Officer I’ve also spoken to carers who initially loved their agency but as time went on, amongst other things, they became frustrated that they had long gaps between placements.
One carer told me she’d been informed she wouldn’t have a child or young person placed with her for a very long time, because the referrals 'weren’t coming through'. This shocked me, as I know that we have so many children and young people who need homes.
Local Authorities are legally responsible for every child who comes into care, placement requests come to us first. This allows us to place children with fostering families who can meet their needs, while also considering each carer’s strengths and the support they can offer that child. When we discussed this, this made sense to her, and she booked to visit with one of our social workers and is now in the process of transferring.
There have been many times when I’ve had initial enquiry conversations with prospective foster carers who didn’t realise that there was a difference between LA’s and IFA’s. I remember a call with a prospective carer who had enquired with several different IFA’s and us as her LA. She’d had conversations already with IFA’s but she genuinely thought the agencies were part of the Local Authority, just a different branch.
She had been promised a lot from the agencies she’d spoken to, but I was honest and open with her about fostering. We talked about the reality of the day to day of fostering, not just what looks good in marketing. We discussed the importance of keeping children connected to their schools and friends wherever possible and how LA’s and IFA’s differ. She said she felt better able to make a decision about whether fostering was right for her and thanked me for my honesty.
All these conversations, over and over, are what have shaped my belief that fostering with the Local Authority genuinely creates the strongest environment for both carers and children.
It’s not about competition, it’s about acknowledging that fostering is challenging as well as rewarding and that fundamentally the most important factor here is the well being of the children and young people who come into care.
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