People in Kent urged to consider fostering in national recruitment drive
The government wants to create 10,000 new foster care places across England
Last updated 19th Oct 2026
People in Kent are being encouraged to consider becoming foster carers as part of a new recruitment campaign across England.
The Department for Education says the campaign will support the government’s ambition to create 10,000 new foster care places by the end of this Parliament.
It will target adults in their 30s and 40s who may have the capacity and commitment to foster but have never seriously considered it.
The launch was marked by an event at 10 Downing Street on 13th October 2026, bringing together foster carers, frontline workers and people with experience of the care system.
According to the department, the number of approved foster carers has fallen by 12% since 2019, while the number of children needing care has increased.
Its polling found 66% of people believe they could be a good foster carer if practical barriers were removed.
A Kent foster carer’s experience
A foster carer based near Sittingbourne has encouraged people considering fostering to ask questions and find out more.
Tracy Temple, who has been fostering for around 15 years, told Greatest Hits Radio Kent she first became interested after meeting the foster carer of one of her son’s school friends:
“We had a long think about it and decided to start asking some questions.
Got in touch with fostering agency and spoke to them from there.”
Since then she has cared for several children over the years, including providing emergency cover, and is currently fostering with National Fostering Group.
She said fostering has become part of her wider family’s life, with a child in her care growing up alongside her grandchildren:
“It's turned our world upside down, but our families are so supportive and so helpful.”
When it comes to how many children Tracy has now supported over the years, she says it's possibly too many to count, due to her willingness to take emegency placements:
"Emergency cover is literally you don't know when, how long they're staying for, if they're staying, if they're going, what's happening with them.
"It could be a family relative who's ill, caregiver who's in hospital, incapacitated in some way.
"So you really don't know, which I thrive on. I absolutely love it because it's a different child, it's a different person all the time."
For anyone who has not explored fostering before, she encouraged them to speak to an agency about what is involved:
“There's no such thing as a silly question. If people want to call up the agency and chat to someone, just ask, and keep asking until, you know, you think, 'yeah, I can do that.'”
More flexible routes into fostering
The Department for Education says it is providing £88 million to reform fostering, including £12.4 million for a fund testing new approaches.
These include short-term respite care and weekend fostering, intended to make caring for children accessible to a wider range of people.
The 11 programmes receiving money through the Fostering Innovation Fund cover areas including recruiting weekend carers, supporting carers through allegations and increasing diversity among foster carers.
Other programmes focus on parent-and-child fostering, therapeutic training and helping children move from residential care into foster families where this meets their needs.
Support for children and carers
Children’s Minister Josh MacAlister said:
“Fostering changes lives, not just for the children who finally get the stability and love every child deserves, but for the carers themselves, who tell us it’s one of the most rewarding things they’ve ever done.
“Right now, thousands of children need that chance, and that’s exactly what our national campaign is about: cracking fostering open to ordinary people across England who have the values, the commitment, and the love to foster.
“This is part of a bigger reset of children’s social care, one that puts loving, stable relationships back at the heart of the system.”
The campaign follows the government’s Fostering Action Plan, launched in February, and the Enduring Relationships Programme, launched in June.
Further changes include revised guidance for foster carers and digital tools intended to speed up recruitment.
The department says more than 70% of local authorities are now part of a Fostering Hub.
It says the reforms are intended to make becoming a foster carer easier and improve support for people already caring for children.