You're “Just” a Foster Carer & Revolving Door Failed Leadership; They Move Around. So Does the Damage.

You’re “JUST” a foster carer. A word that tells you an awful lot about how foster carers are still viewed by parts of the care system.

This week Sarah and Louise unpack the “just” that diminishes foster carers, the weaponisation of experience, and why carers are expected to behave like professionals while routinely being treated as though their knowledge, qualifications and expertise somehow count for less.

But first, we’re looking at 112 care leavers who died last year, and asking the uncomfortable question: how many more reviews do we need before someone actually changes the system that keeps producing the same outcomes?

Then we turn our attention to the revolving door of children’s services leadership. Leaders move from one authority to another, new strategies are announced, new improvement plans appear, and the language changes… but what happens to accountability when the people who made the decisions simply move on?

Plus, the Naughty Step returns with a first-ever three-way tie for some truly spectacular examples of recruitment marketing that manages to make fostering look easy, fun and apparently requiring little more than a spare room.

Useful Links

JOIN FOSTERWIKI TODAY https://fosterwiki.com/register/

NFCQ: http://education.nfcq.co.uk

Carer Hotline Contact Emails:

info@fosterwiki.com

louise@louise-allen.com

If you'd like to chat about this episode or any of our past episodes, feel free to reach out to us at info@fosterwiki.com. We’d love to hear from you!

All views shared in this podcast reflect the personal opinions of the hosts alone. They are not intended as factual assertions about any person or organisation, nor do they represent the views of any employer or professional body.

Big Brother or Accountability? CCTV, Body Cams and Someone’s Back on the Naughty Step

This week, Sarah and Louise are back with the cynicism dial turned all the way up, and, for the first time, Sarah and Louise find themselves firmly on opposite sides of one of the biggest debates in fostering right now, and let’s just say, it gets lively! Do Sarah and Louise fall out or disagree agreeably?

Westminster’s latest response to care leavers being pushed off a “dangerous cliff edge” to another round of reports, handbooks, carefully crafted quotes and political promises, they ask the increasingly uncomfortable question: is anyone actually fixing anything, or are we just getting better at talking about it?

Somerset Council take the converted Naughty Step Award for a second time, with a Best Value Notice (no, that's not an award!) and a £7 million “transformation” programme, overseen by the very people who got them into this mess in the first place, not a resignation or sacking in sight. And can you really transform fostering by simply asking foster carers to do more?

And finally, cameras. Should social workers wear body cams? Should foster carers have cameras in their homes? Sarah is firmly on the fence, but perhaps the more important question is why so many people now feel they need a recording device to prove what actually happened. When trust in the system has deteriorated to this point, are cameras the answer, or are they evidence of a much bigger problem?

Useful Links

JOIN FOSTERWIKI TODAY https://fosterwiki.com/register/

https://www.itv.com/news/2026-07-03/council-staff-told-to-delay-access-to-send-support-whistleblower-claims

If you'd like to chat about this episode or any of our past episodes, feel free to reach out to us at info@fosterwiki.com. We’d love to hear from you!

All views shared in this podcast reflect the personal opinions of the hosts alone. They are not intended as factual assertions about any person or organisation, nor do they represent the views of any employer or professional body.

The Rules Don’t Apply to Everyone: Unchecked Power – Part 2

This week on Foster Care Uncovered, Sarah and Louise go from the supposedly boring world of new fostering standards to one of the most uncomfortable questions in children’s social care: what happens to the truth when one side holds most of the power?

Can power create a culture where the truth becomes… flexible? Not necessarily because anyone is deliberately lying, but because when you hold the authority, do you become unconsciously more confident in your own version of events? What happens when conversations are remembered differently, records are disputed, explanations are dismissed, and the person with the professional authority gets to decide which version carries the most weight?

We also get stuck into the new draft Fostering Quality Standards and ask whether they really change anything, whether foster carers are genuinely being recognised as professional partners, and why standards seem to demand so much from carers while accountability for services can feel rather more optional.

Does power change how we see the truth? And when the people with the most authority are also the people judging whether they got it right, who is checking them?

This one gets uncomfortable, and that’s exactly where Foster Care Uncovered likes to be.

Useful Links

JOIN FOSTERWIKI TODAY https://fosterwiki.com/register/

If you'd like to chat about this episode or any of our past episodes, feel free to reach out to us at info@fosterwiki.com. We’d love to hear from you!

All views shared in this podcast reflect the personal opinions of the hosts alone. They are not intended as factual assertions about any person or organisation, nor do they represent the views of any employer or professional body.