Facing the cuts Discussion and information share

What’s happening? Comprehensive spending review will be published on 20 October Services for children in care have not been ‘ring- fenced’ Many local authorities are already making and planning significant cuts

What are we doing? Media work to raise awareness of situation Providing information about the true costs of foster care Media work – Bursting at the seams – very real pressures the system is facing Update to the cost of foster care shows that MORE investment needed not less … But realistically we know we cannot campaign on this at the moment

What are we doing? Lobbying Government to protect funding for foster care services Lobbying councillors to remember responsibilities as corporate parents Focussing on doing what we can to protect foster care from cuts – we went to the party conferences and hosted fringe events asking whether it was possible to do ‘more for less’ for children in care. Well attended, good response. Arguing that cuts will have impact on lives of children and young people, could affect outcomes for years to come. Read about events on blog. But now decisions have pretty much been made at govt level, we know we need to focus on councillors and ensure that they recognise what their responsibilities are at a local level…. We’re willing to write to councillors in a particular area to raise specific issues if members contact us …. (?) T4C contains a lot of information about how to improve outcomes of children at little or no cost to the LA (i.e. FC reps on corporate parenting boards etc). So while our lobbying of Govt for increased funding for LAC will be limited – we are going to be working hard to target councillors and LAs.

What are we doing? Gathering information about cuts to inform campaigning Sharing good practice This is how you can help us. We need you to tell us about the cuts planned in your fostering services. For those of you from independents we also need to know how these cuts will affect you. We will take what we find to ministers and councillors to illustrate the very real impacts. We also want to help our members share experiences and good practice. Where people are finding ways to save money without impacting on front line services, we want to be able to share this with others. Information is power, we’re all in this together. Mention forms