SWANSEA: Foster carers quitting faster than they join as children’s home placements double

A child taken into care in Swansea this year is more likely than ever to end up in a children’s home rather than someone’s spare room. That is the picture in Swansea Council‘s annual report on its children’s services, going to councillors on Tuesday, and the council says the reason is simple: it is running out of foster carers.

Foster Wales Swansea, the council’s own fostering service, approved 11 carers in 2025/26 and de-registered 20, the report shows. Its approved households have dropped from 139 in 2021/22 to 117, a fall every year for five years.

Over the same five years, the number of children in residential placements has doubled, from 29 to 58. The report puts that down to “the increasing complexity of need and the limited availability of suitable local family-based placements”.

Forty-nine in, eighty-three out

Add up the five years and the service has taken on 49 carers and lost 83. The number of children living with its own carers has fallen from 166 to 141, with another 72 placed through independent agencies.

The service blames “significant staffing and recruitment challenges” that have hit its own capacity to recruit. It says enquiries are picking up, more prospective carers are in training, and a record number of early permanence assessments, which line up an adoptive home for a baby before a court decides, were completed last year.

Back in May, during Foster Care Fortnight, the service said more than 140 local families fostered with it. The report’s figure of 117 approved households is for 31 March.

The children with nowhere registered to go

The shortage shows up in the numbers the council would rather were zero. Sixteen children spent time in unregulated provision during the year, one more than the year before, the report says.

When councillors asked in July how many were in unregistered placements at that moment, they were told 11, with some living in properties still going through registration. The panel’s letter records that officers assured it “robust governance and oversight arrangements” were in place while long-term homes were found.

Asked what was stopping more local carers coming forward, officers told the panel recruitment “remains a significant challenge”. Their answer, recorded in the same letter, includes council tax incentives for foster carers, capital grants to adapt carers’ homes, new local residential provision, and a statutory plan setting out how many placements the city needs.

Babies and teenagers, and a register that keeps growing

Children under one are still the age group most likely to come into care, the report says, followed by 10 to 15-year-olds. Pressure at both ends of childhood at once, in the council’s words.

The overall number of children looked after has kept falling, to 571 during the year against 658 in 2021/22 and 473 at the end of March, which the report credits to keeping children safely with their families and finding permanent homes where it can. Kinship carer households, relatives and family friends approved to look after a child, rose to 103.

Child protection is going the other way. The report counts 491 children on the child protection register during the year, up from 433, with 322 added, 232 still on it at the end of March and 47 conferences held before a baby was born.

The front door is busier too: 17,137 contacts in the year, up 13% according to the report, with home visits and assessments up as well.

What the inspectors said

Care Inspectorate Wales inspected the service earlier this year, and the panel’s July letter describes “a positive overall picture”, with child-centred practice, visible leadership and the embedding of the Signs of Safety model singled out for praise. Record keeping, quality assurance and step-up and step-down arrangements were listed for improvement, and the letter says officers had already agreed an action plan.

The report is signed off by cabinet member for children, young people and families Alyson Anthony and head of child and family services Julie Davies. The child and family services scrutiny panel, chaired by Cllr Mark Tribe, meets at the Guildhall and online at 4.30pm on Tuesday.

Anyone thinking about fostering can find out more at swansea.fosterwales.gov.wales.