Ex-foster carers accuse council of 'deceiving' them

Julian and Maria King said information was withheld about children they looked after

A number of former foster carers have told the BBC they feel social services in Gloucestershire treated them poorly.

Julian and Maria King, who fostered 120 children over 10 years, said the children's services team they dealt with was "manipulative" and "deceitful" – failing to divulge information about challenging children.

Gloucestershire County Council, which runs the service, admitted that "historically, practice was not where we would want it to be".

But a spokesperson said the council had "taken action to improve the service".

Mr and Mrs King enjoyed fostering, taking up to five children at a time. Many were teenagers from troubled backgrounds but they had a lot of fun.

They couple felt they weren't always told everything about the children they looked after.

"They'd threatened carers with knives, they'd soiled, they'd done all sorts of things like that, and we weren't privy to that information," Mrs King said.

And when asking the couple to take on a new foster child, the council would "pull on the heart strings", Mr King claimed.

"We were being manipulated, really, into taking these [children]," he said.

An allegation was made that the couple swore in front of one of the teenagers they were fostering.

The couple don't deny the incident but felt the investigation that followed was overblown.

They gave up fostering as a result and now run a service providing emergency accommodation for homeless people.

'Biting, kicking'

Graham – not his real name – fostered in Gloucestershire for 14 years, taking care of more than 50 children.

He claims he regularly made requests for handling training from children's services to deal with the most difficult children.

He spent time at school to support one youngster who was "attacking" the teachers, he said.

"So that would be biting, kicking, she'd also attack the furniture," Graham said.

"She'd spit, she'd strip off all her clothes and just run around the school and they had to have all the security doors locked.

"We had no handling training and had been asking for about two or three years."

Gloucestershire County Council said all foster carers were offered "comprehensive training" and that requests for any specialist training "are taken seriously".

Graham's family were bruised by one child, who then made allegations against Graham.

Police were called but the BBC has been told no further action was taken.

'Low morale'

Research by Ofsted in 2024 found the number of foster carers has steadily been declining nationally in recent years.

In interviews with foster carers across the UK, the education watchdog found low morale surrounding issues including pay, support and a stressful allegation process.

"We are seeing huge pressures across social care, and these are filtering down onto foster carers and it's really impacting on their experiences," said Sarah Thomas, CEO of the Fostering Network.

"We need to think about how we respect foster carers, how we support foster carers, how we fund foster carers and how we recognise them as the most critical part of the social care sector."

The Department for Education has said it is investing more than £40m to increase the number of foster families.

The government is in the process of creating regional fostering recruitment and retention hubs.

It is also doubling council funding for early intervention to £500m to "keep children in safe and loving homes wherever possible".

The number of children in care in Gloucestershire has steadily risen in recent years to 842 at the end of March 2024.

There are only 250 local authority-managed foster families, however.

Responding to the comments of Mr and Mrs King, and Graham, Councillor Ben Evans said there had been "occasions where we did not reach the high standards we aspire to".

But he said: "The views of foster carers and our own staff are taken seriously by the county council and any concerns are looked into."

He said the council had a "duty to look into these concerns thoroughly, whilst supporting carers through what we know can be a stressful process".

Mr Evans, lead cabinet member for children's services, added: "We are committed to providing the best support we can to foster carers to ensure children in care are provided with safe and happy homes."