A NEW support network for foster carers should help Dorset Council recruit new foster carers and retain the ones it already has.

The council is currently losing as many foster carers as it is gaining with only 19 new foster carers joining in the last year, after more than 230 initial inquiries.

It is also facing a bulge where many of its current foster carers are coming up to, or are beyond, retirement age.

Councillors heard on Monday that the new support network would be small groups of foster carers based around a central foster carer who main role would be to offer support and guidance, rather than to foster, apart from occasional respite care.

The model is in use elsewhere and has been proved to foster reduce placement breakdown, reduce the use of residential care homes and keep foster carers working with councils rather than move to independent fostering agencies.

The council says that by finding more of its own foster carers it would be able to offer homes within the county, rather than the current situation, where many Dorset children are living outside Dorset.

The council’s people, health and scrutiny committee heard that times had changed, but in many ways Dorset Council’s fostering carer recruitment campaigns had not kept pace and was being out-performed by neighbouring counties and independent fostering agencies.

Between 2018 and May 2021 the recruitment strategy for foster carers in Dorset was outsourced but is now being managed in-house with a focus, during the pandemic, on online and digital campaigns.