Unintended consequences of the misalignment of the registration of fostering and children’s homes?

There is increasingly glaring misalignment of the regulatory framework regarding registration of fostering and children’s homes.

The recently closed consultation Fostering for the future: improving the foster care system – call for evidence raised the issue of ‘Misalignment between new models and the regulatory framework’.

(Un)intended is the situation now there is no need for children’s homes registration as all can now be registered as fostering, thus furthering the Family First policy of government.

Registration of care settings has become a strange, contradictory landscape.

Explaining the situation

In a time when there are one child children’s homes with 2 grown-ups (like a family, and not a group) that do require registration, as a children’s home not fostering

And there are some that should be registered as a children’s home but don’t and so aren’t

There is fostering registration for a setting of one or two children (like a family, and not a group)

And now fostering registration possible for a setting with 6 children (Room Makers), a group not a family, that look and run like a children’s home that isn’t to be registered as a children’s home, but as fostering, though there are additional grown-ups throughout the day (not like a family, like a children’s home).

Government position re Room Makers

This is not evading regulations. This is not a new model of care.

As the DfE have affirmed in a response to an enquiry by NCERCC re Room Makers, “It supports individual foster families and operates within existing fostering legislation. It does not create group or institutional models of care, or alter approval limits, safeguarding requirements, or inspection arrangements”.

They make it apparent “…Room Makers addresses a practical barrier of limited space in foster carers’ homes and reinforces family-based fostering, not residential or group care.”

What this makes clear might be (un)intended… there’s no need for children’s homes registration as all can now be registered as fostering thus furthering  the Family First policy of government.

As a way of coping the discrepancies we made some notes on the situation in the form of limericks

The regulatory tangle

There once was a system so dense,

Where the rules made no obvious sense.

One child with two grown‑ups?

A home that must own up,

But six can be “fostering” by intent.

The family/not‑family paradox

A small home with one child – two grown-ups,

Must register, forms piled up in lumps.

Yet six in a “foster” group,

With staff in a rotating loop,

Needs no home registration – like the game ‘Top Trumps’!

The absurdity highlighted

A one‑child home must comply,

Though it looks like a family, my oh my.

But six in a pack,

With adults on shift back‑to‑back,

Can skip being a children’s home – Why?