Halfway Through Foster Care Fortnight: Are Scotland’s Children Still Waiting for a Truly Child-Centred Care System?

As Foster Care Fortnight reaches its halfway point, Scotland is rightly celebrating the extraordinary commitment of foster carers who open their homes, hearts and lives to children who cannot remain safely with their birth families.

But alongside the gratitude, there must also be honesty.

Because behind the awareness campaigns and warm messages of appreciation lies a difficult truth: too many children entering care in Scotland are still being met by a system that is not genuinely child-centred.

Instead of being guided by what children need most—safety, stability, loving relationships and swift decisions—the system is too often shaped by what local authorities have available at that moment: limited foster placements, overstretched social workers, and delays in permanence planning.

Children should never have to fit into a system’s shortages. The system should be built around the child.

The Child Comes Into Care—And the Clock Starts Ticking

When a child is removed from home, they are often experiencing the most traumatic event of their lives.

They may have endured abuse, neglect, parental addiction, domestic violence, or chronic instability. Many arrive in care frightened, confused and grieving.

At this moment, the child’s needs are simple but profound:

• A safe and nurturing home

• Adults who understand trauma

• Continuity of education and healthcare

• Clear plans about where they will grow up

• Honest communication about what is happening

Scottish Government guidance states that if a child has been looked after away from home for six months and significant progress towards returning home has not been achieved, local authorities should consider a plan for permanence away from birth parents.

Yet in practice, many children remain in limbo for years.

A System Driven by Availability, Not Need

The hardest reality to confront is that placement decisions are frequently influenced by resource shortages rather than by what would best meet the child’s needs.

A child may need:

• A foster family able to keep siblings together

• Carers with therapeutic experience

• A home near school and family connections

• Long-term stability

But what they are offered may simply be the only placement available.

This is not because professionals do not care. Social workers, foster carers and managers are working under extraordinary pressure.

The problem is systemic.

When there are too few foster carers and too few social workers, the question can become:

“Where can we place this child tonight?”

rather than:

“Where can this child heal and belong?”

Scotland’s Continuing Foster Carer Shortage

Scotland is facing an ongoing shortage of foster carers, particularly for:

• Teenagers

• Sibling groups

• Children with disabilities

• Children with complex trauma

• Children who need long-term care

The Scottish Government’s national fostering campaign explicitly states that more foster carers are urgently needed across the country.

The shortage has real consequences.

Children may be:

• Moved far from their communities

• Separated from brothers and sisters

• Placed in multiple short-term homes

• Left waiting in unsuitable emergency arrangements

Every move reinforces a damaging message: “Nowhere is truly yours.”

The Social Worker Crisis

At the centre of every child’s care journey should be a consistent, trusted social worker.

But Scotland, like the rest of the UK, faces severe workforce pressures.

High caseloads, vacancies, sickness and staff turnover mean that many children experience repeated changes of worker. Each change disrupts relationships and delays decisions.

For children who have already learned that adults disappear, this inconsistency can deepen feelings of mistrust and abandonment.

For social workers themselves, the emotional burden is immense. Most entered the profession to build relationships and protect children, yet many are forced into crisis management rather than meaningful direct work.

Permanence Plans Delayed—Childhood Put on Hold

Permanence is not a legal technicality. It is a child’s right to know where they belong.

The Scottish Government emphasises that loving, nurturing and legally secure relationships are central to children’s wellbeing.

Permanence may involve:

• Returning home safely

• Long-term foster care

• Kinship care

• Permanence Orders

• Adoption

However, many children remain subject to repeated reviews, assessments and shifting goals while adults debate options.

Months turn into years.

Children continue asking questions no child should have to ask indefinitely:

• “Am I staying here?”

• “Will I see my brother?”

• “Why can’t anyone decide?”

• “Do I belong somewhere?”

Childhood does not pause while systems deliberate.

The Human Cost of Drift

Research and lived experience consistently show that instability in care can lead to:

• Attachment difficulties

• Poor mental health

• Educational disruption

• Behaviour linked to unresolved trauma

• Reduced trust in adults

• Poorer long-term outcomes

  
  

As of July 2025, 11,824 children were looked after in Scotland. Around 28% were living with foster carers and 35% with kinship carers.

Behind every statistic is a child whose future depends on adults making timely and courageous decisions.

The Promise: A Vision Worth Fighting For

Following the Independent Care Review, Scotland made a national commitment through The Promise to ensure that care-experienced children grow up loved, safe and respected, with decisions centred on relationships rather than systems.

The Promise challenges Scotland to redesign care around what children need—not what organisations find easiest to provide.

This vision is powerful.

But without sufficient foster carers, adequately staffed social work teams and decisive permanence planning, children continue to experience uncertainty rather than security.

What a Truly Child-Centred System Would Look Like

A genuinely child-centred care system would ensure that every child entering care:

• Is placed according to their needs, not placement availability

• Remains with siblings whenever possible

• Has one consistent and trusted social worker

• Receives trauma-informed support immediately

• Has a clear permanence plan within months, not years

• Is listened to and involved in decisions

• Knows they are wanted and valued

These are not aspirational extras. They are the foundations of good care.

Foster Carers Deserve More Than Appreciation

Foster carers are often described as the backbone of the care system, and rightly so.

They provide love, advocacy, routine and resilience to children who may have known very little security.

But gratitude alone is not enough.

If Scotland is serious about improving outcomes, foster carers need:

• Competitive financial support

• Access to therapeutic training

• Respite and peer support

• Respect as equal partners in care planning

• Prompt decision-making about children’s futures

Recruiting and retaining carers requires meaningful investment, not just annual campaigns.

A Call to Local Authorities

Local authorities carry immense responsibility and operate under intense financial and workforce pressures.

But children cannot wait for ideal circumstances.

Every delay in securing permanence, every unnecessary move, and every decision based on scarcity rather than need has lifelong consequences.

Being child-centred means having the courage to ask:

• What does this child need to feel safe and loved?

• What relationships matter most?

• How quickly can we provide certainty?

• What barriers are organisational rather than child-focused?

As Foster Care Fortnight Continues

This Foster Care Fortnight, let us celebrate the remarkable foster carers who transform children’s lives.

But let us also confront the reality that many children in Scotland still experience a care system shaped by shortages and delays.

There are too few foster carers.

Too few social workers.

Too many children waiting for permanence.

Too many childhoods spent in uncertainty.

Scotland has made a promise to care-experienced children.

The true measure of that promise is not what we say during awareness campaigns, but whether every child entering care is met with swift, loving and decisive action.

Because children do not need more meetings.

They need homes.

They need permanence.

And above all, they need adults willing to put them—not the system—at the centre of every decision.