13 hours ago
Now Foster: Saving Kids, One Weekend A Month
When Now Teach launched in 2017, co-founded by Financial Times columnist Lucy Kellaway and educator Katie Waldegrave, it offered a powerful new narrative: that professionals in midlife had more to give than planning retirement. And that society had more to gain—if only we created more welcoming off-ramps. It was a radical reframe of the so-called 'third quarter' of life, tapping into the talents of people ready for meaningful new careers later in life. Thousands responded.
Now, Waldegrave is extending the same midlife transformation logic to one of society's most underserved spaces: foster care. Together with former social worker Laurie Kilby, she's launched Now Foster, a not-for-profit with an equally ambitious goal—to broaden who fosters kids - and how.
Katie Waldegrave
Now Foster
The UK's foster care system is in crisis. There are not enough carers. Outcomes for what's referred to as 'children in care' remain unacceptably awful. Many are placed in residential settings as young as seven, cut off from consistent relationships, and abruptly exited from care at 18 with no support structures. It's a system over-stressed, underfunded, and ill-equipped to serve the 80,000 children currently in its remit.
Katie Waldegrave, who began her career in teaching with Teach First, knew the limits of what even the best schools could do. As she dug deeper into the care system after a nudge from journalist and foster carer Martin Barrow, she was struck by the parallels with education—and the potential for change. 'Someone needs to do for fostering what you did for teaching,' he told her. So she did.
Enter Now Foster's flagship programme: the Weekenders. This isn't traditional fostering. It's not 24/7 care. Instead, it's a model where trained adults open their homes to the same child one weekend a month, providing continuity, affection and new horizons. Think aunt, uncle, or honorary grandparent—not substitute parent. It's simple. It's smart. And it's working.
Laurie Kilby
Now Foster
Laurie Kilby, who spent years on the frontlines as a social worker, calls it 'the best thing I do.' Her own weekend guest—a 14-year-old boy—calls it 'all the fun, no school run.' It offers children new experiences, and carers a meaningful connection with flexibility. Full-time carers get welcome support. Children gain a second safe adult. And the system gains a new layer of humanity.
The Weekender profile echoes that of the Now Teach recruits: midlife professionals with empathy, energy and life experience. Many are still working. Some are not. Some have children, or grandchildren. Others have neither. What they share is a sense of purpose—and the time to offer it.
This new format opens the door to people who might never have considered fostering. It removes the 'all or nothing' barrier and makes the first step easier. With a single weekend commitment, many more can say yes.
And many more must. Too often, children leave care at 18, defined as 'adult,' with no enduring adult relationships. They are more likely to experience unemployment, homelessness, incarceration—and even shortened life expectancy. At its worst, residential care can cost £250,000 a year and deliver none of the outcomes that justify the cost.
Weekenders are a low-cost, high-impact complement to full-time fostering—and potentially a powerful antidote to intergenerational disconnection.
Fostering remains poorly understood. It's often confused with adoption or framed in the media through stories of crisis and failure. Few know that fostering can take many forms—from emergency stays to longer-term arrangements—and fewer still would ever consider themselves eligible.
Kilby wants to change that. The mission is not just to increase recruitment, but to reframe foster care entirely. Less emergency stop-gap. More intentional relationship. Less bureaucracy. More community.
NOW Foster also wants to shift the language. 'Respite care,' a term used when carers reach burnout, can stigmatise children—making them feel they are the cause of the crisis. Weekenders flip the framing. It's not about a break from children. It's about building a team around them.
Now Foster is currently active in 10 London boroughs and aims to scale nationally. The long-term ambition: make weekending a recognised and resourced form of foster care in its own right. The goal is a systemic shift. That every child in care, where appropriate, has access to at least two safe, supportive adults. That we normalise intergenerational care. That fostering moves from the shadows to the centre of civic life. And that midlife becomes a powerful source of both individual and societal regeneration—not withdrawal.
The parallels to Now Teach are clear. Both initiatives identify untapped potential in people at midlife. Both create smart, flexible structures for impact. Both ask: what if you could matter more in your second half?
The difference? Now Foster tackles a crisis that's hidden in plain sight. Foster care is too often an afterthought in policy, philanthropy and media. And yet the costs of inaction—financial, human, and generational—are enormous.
But perhaps most compelling of all is what Katie Waldegrave and Laurie Kilby hear from the children themselves. Young people matched with weekenders are beginning to thrive. One, previously restless and unsettled, discovered a love for musical theatre through a weekender's support. She's now applying to university to study it. Others are reconnecting with siblings, building confidence, and finding a thread of stability previously unknown.
As Laurie Kilby puts it: 'It only takes one adult to change a child's life. And it doesn't have to be the full-time carer.'
