Thousands more children and young people are set to benefit from stable, loving homes after the government launched a £12.4 million Fostering Innovation Fund aimed at making foster care more accessible, inclusive, and better aligned with modern life.
Announced during Foster Care Fortnight, the new fund forms a key part of the Department for Education’s ambition to expand foster care capacity and create up to 10,000 additional foster care places over the course of this Parliament.
The fund is designed to challenge long‑standing assumptions about what foster care “should” look like. Historically, fostering has often been built around traditional family structures, with expectations that carers are married couples and that one adult is available full‑time.
The new reforms seek to reflect today’s lifestyles and household structures, helping to attract younger and more diverse foster carers, while also improving the experience for those already fostering.
By updating foster care models, the Department for Education aims to ensure care can be delivered more flexibly without compromising safeguarding standards, giving more vulnerable children the chance to grow up in family‑based settings rather than residential care.
The £12.4 million will be allocated to Regional Care Co‑operatives and fostering hubs, operated by local authorities across England. These bodies will work collaboratively with a range of partners, including children’s charities and commercial providers, to develop and trial innovative new approaches to foster care.
Projects supported by the fund will focus on improving outcomes for children and young people, including initiatives designed to prevent unnecessary entry into residential care and strengthen support for foster families.
The fund also encourages organisations to form partnerships, enabling them to test and scale new models of care more effectively across regions.
Innovation in the fostering sector is already showing promise in several parts of England. In Greater Manchester, a foster carer with four years’ experience was previously limited to a single placement due to space constraints in her home.
Through a £7,800 grant from the local Room Makers scheme, run by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, she was able to reconfigure her home and will soon be able to welcome sibling groups – keeping brothers and sisters together in care.
Other approaches being trialled by organisations include respite and weekend‑only fostering, where children spend time with foster carers at weekends or for short periods during the week. These arrangements can support long‑term care plans, including children living in residential homes or being cared for by extended family members.
Such flexible models can improve stability for children and make fostering a more realistic option for people who may not be able to commit to traditional, full‑time arrangements.
Josh MacAlister, Children’s Minister, said:
“Every child deserves the chance to grow up in a safe and loving home, and I’ve been truly inspired by the foster carers I have met who make that happen.
“This investment will help us bring fostering into the 21st century, moving on from outdated assumptions about who can foster and how care should be offered and opening it up to a wider range of people.
“This will help us recruit more carers, and change more children’s lives by giving them a stable home.”
The Fostering Innovation Fund was first announced in February as part of the government’s Fostering Action Plan, which set out wider measures to make fostering more flexible, improve support for carers and modernise local authority decision‑making around who can foster.
The launch is one element of a broader programme of activity planned during Foster Care Fortnight, aimed at raising awareness of fostering and encouraging more people to consider becoming foster carers.
Successful applicants to the fund are expected to be announced later this summer, following the close of the application process.
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