Flintshire social services highlight urgent need for new foster carers
There are around 260 children in foster care in Flintshire looked after by 83 foster families.
Some of those foster families are 'connected persons' – people with a family link to the children in their care like grandparents.
Others are 'general foster carers'. These are people who take in any children in need of stability and care on behalf of Flintshire County Council.
The authority has a strong track record of providing high quality support for children in foster care, but is facing difficulty recruiting new families.
In 2024/25 Flintshire's recruitment target was 12 new families to meet demand. It approved just three general foster carers and two connected persons.
Concerned about the low recruitment level, Brynford and Halkyn councillor Fran Lister asked: 'Is there a good retention of foster carers? Since Covid lots of people may be using spare rooms to work in and I'm just wondering whether the foster care market has declined since then and if we need to take that into account.
'The target was 12, there was five this year which is obviously nowhere near what we need. Is there any more we can do to recruit foster carers that are so desperately needed?'
Outreach work is ongoing according to Jane Davies, Senior Manager for Safeguarding and Commissioning in Flintshire Social Services.
But low numbers of applicants and the challenge of approving those suitable to foster has posed difficulties for Flintshire's fostering team.
'The demographic has changed – some existing foster carers have got older and have retired or are now looking after their own grandchildren so that has had an impact,' she said.
'We have also had less people coming forward as new foster carers. Part of that is lifestyle and expectations since Covid.
'It's not for everybody, it's a really difficult role and you have to be a certain sort of person to be a foster carer.'
Ms Davies added that Flintshire was actively reaching out to promote its in-house foster care service to attract more applicants.
'We have policies to encourage our own council staff to become foster carers and supportive mechanisms to assist with that, we offer council tax discretion as in other North Wales authorities and we have a dedicated officer within the fostering team who supports promoting the service through social media and advertising.
'The fostering team, which is based in Flint, will have a presence at the Eisteddfod in Wrexham in three weeks. They will also have a presence at the Royal Welsh Show.
'There people will be able to go and learn more about becoming foster carers, understand better what it entails.
'It's important we get into lots of places and there is lots of activity around this to promote fostering.'
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