Point 23/100 — Can You Explain Why Someone Should Foster With You?
Point 23/100 — Can You Explain Why Someone Should Foster With You?
Here is a test I would like every fostering provider to try.
Open your fostering website.
Now mentally remove:
your logo,
your organisation's name,
your corporate colours,
and any geographical references.
Then do the same with three other fostering providers.
Now read the words.
Could you confidently identify which organisation was yours?
Or would you find remarkably similar statements?
Excellent support.
Comprehensive training.
24/7 support.
A dedicated social worker.
Join our fostering family.
Make a difference to a child's life.
There is nothing inherently wrong with any of those statements.
The problem is that almost everybody can say them.
And that creates a fundamental recruitment question:
Why should somebody foster with you?
This is your Foster Carer proposition
In commercial recruitment we would normally talk about the proposition being offered to a candidate.
Foster Carer Recruitment is different from conventional employment recruitment, but the underlying candidate question still exists.
A prospective Foster Carer has to make a significant decision.
They may have a choice between:
their Local Authority,
another neighbouring Local Authority,
a regional recruitment arrangement,
one IFA,
another IFA,
or deciding not to foster at all.
They therefore need to understand not simply:
“What is fostering?”
but:
“What would fostering with YOU actually be like?”
That is your proposition.
A proposition is not a slogan
This is where recruitment messaging can go wrong.
An organisation says:
“Our Foster Carers receive outstanding support.”
That sounds reassuring.
But what does it mean?
Does outstanding support mean:
a named supervising social worker?
monthly supervision?
fortnightly contact?
someone answering a telephone overnight?
an experienced Foster Carer mentor?
clinical support?
therapeutic consultation?
support groups?
Mockingbird?
emergency short breaks?
planned respite?
birth-child support?
support during allegations?
someone attending difficult meetings with the Foster Carer?
Different providers may mean completely different things by the word support.
So saying “excellent support” is not really a proposition.
It is a claim.
A proposition starts when you explain what that claim means in practice.
The Government is focusing on exactly these issues
This matters particularly now.
The Government's February 2026 Renewing Fostering plan identifies support as a major recruitment and retention issue. It says Foster Carers consistently report wanting to feel trusted, supported and valued and sets out plans around stronger peer support, training, short breaks, allegations support and greater financial fairness and transparency.
The July 2026 consultation on updated fostering standards goes further on allegations, proposing clearer expectations around timeliness, support, regular updates, independent advocacy and continuing payments, while maintaining safeguarding as the central consideration.
That tells us something significant.
The things prospective and existing Foster Carers may care about are not superficial benefits around the edge of fostering.
They are becoming central questions within national reform.
“We provide 24/7 support”
This is perhaps my favourite example.
I see it constantly.
24/7 support.
Excellent.
But imagine I am the prospective Foster Carer.
I ask:
“What happens at 2:15am on a Sunday morning when I genuinely need help?”
Who answers?
A social worker?
An on-call service?
A central telephone number?
Someone who knows me?
Someone who knows the child?
How quickly will they respond?
What decisions can that person actually make?
Those questions transform a marketing statement into a recruitment proposition.
Compare:
We offer 24/7 support.
with the much more meaningful:
If something happens outside office hours, you can speak directly to our fostering on-call team. We explain exactly how that service works before you are approved, so you know who to contact and what support is available.
Now I understand something about the experience.
“We provide excellent training”
Again:
What training?
Before approval?
After approval?
Face-to-face?
Online?
Mandatory?
Optional?
Therapeutic?
Specialist?
What happens if I am considering fostering teenagers?
Children with disabilities?
Sibling groups?
Children with complex trauma?
Does the training reflect the children the organisation actually places?
Can Foster Carers influence the programme?
Can I speak to someone who has completed it?
“Excellent training” is easy to write.
A genuine proposition is harder because it requires the organisation to describe what actually happens.
Money cannot sit in the small print
There is another subject the sector sometimes remains uncomfortable discussing:
money.
People do not generally decide to foster simply for financial reward.
The behavioural research commissioned by DfE found considerable complexity in attitudes towards finance: caring motivations were strong, but financial circumstances could determine whether fostering was practically possible. The research suggested that discussing financial contributions more constructively could help people understand whether fostering fits their circumstances.
That distinction is critical.
Talking openly about money does not cheapen fostering.
It makes recruitment realistic.
The Government's 2026 call-for-evidence response similarly found that clearer information about allowances, fees and entitlements was seen as helping prospective and existing Foster Carers make informed decisions about financial viability and set realistic expectations.
So your proposition should explain:
What is the allowance?
Is there a fee?
What is that fee based upon?
What happens between placements?
What additional payments exist?
What expenses are covered?
What short-break arrangements exist?
What happens when a placement ends unexpectedly?
What happens financially during an allegation?
Are there council-tax arrangements or other local benefits?
Do not make the prospective Foster Carer search through six PDFs to discover the answer.
Local Authority versus IFA
There is an uncomfortable strategic question here.
Why should somebody choose a Local Authority?
And why should somebody choose an IFA?
There is no universal answer.
That is precisely the point.
A Local Authority might genuinely offer:
very local support,
strong links with local children's services,
a geographically concentrated Foster Carer community,
Mockingbird constellations,
local support groups,
relationships with schools and services,
particular financial arrangements,
or a strong emphasis on keeping local children within their own community.
An IFA might offer:
a particular therapeutic model,
specialist training,
smaller caseloads,
specific support arrangements,
a particular Foster Carer community,
enhanced services,
different financial arrangements,
or specialist experience with particular children.
But those are examples.
Your organisation has to establish which are actually true for you.
And then comes the harder question
Suppose you identify what appears to be a differentiator.
You say:
“Our Foster Carers receive exceptional support from their supervising social workers.”
How do you know?
Because managers believe it?
Because the website says it?
Because marketing wrote it?
Or because Foster Carers consistently experience it?
That distinction matters enormously.
The proposition has to survive contact with reality
A recruitment proposition is a promise.
And promising something that operations cannot consistently deliver may actually damage recruitment and retention.
Imagine the advert says:
“You will never foster alone.”
Then after approval:
calls go unanswered,
social workers change repeatedly,
support groups disappear,
respite is unavailable,
communication becomes inconsistent,
or help arrives only at crisis point.
That creates more than disappointment.
It creates a trust gap.
The Government's Renewing Fostering document explicitly identifies the importance of carers feeling trusted, supported and valued and recognises poor support as an important factor in carers leaving fostering.
So your proposition cannot simply be created by marketing.
Operations have to sign it off too.
The proposition test: CLAIM → PROOF → EXPERIENCE
Here is a simple way to examine every statement on your recruitment website.
CLAIM
“We provide excellent support.”
Now ask:
PROOF
What specifically do we provide?
And then:
EXPERIENCE
What would one of our Foster Carers say actually happens?
That creates a much stronger discipline.
For example:
Claim
Strong peer support.
Proof
Six local monthly Foster Carer groups, mentoring for new carers and access to a Mockingbird constellation where available.
Experience
An existing Foster Carer can explain how that support helped them through a difficult week.
Now you have something prospective Foster Carers can understand.
Existing Foster Carers are your proposition's reality check
This connects directly back to Point 19.
Before finalising your proposition, put it in front of your existing Foster Carers.
Ask them:
Is this true?
Not:
“Do you like this brochure?”
Ask:
“If we promise this to somebody today, will they genuinely experience it after approval?”
That may be one of the most valuable pieces of recruitment research you conduct.
And if Foster Carers laugh at one of the claims?
Pay attention.
What do you offer when things go wrong?
Most propositions are written around everything going well.
But experienced Foster Carers may judge an organisation most strongly when things become difficult.
A placement is destabilising.
A child is struggling.
The Foster Carer's own family is struggling.
There is disagreement with a social worker.
A difficult meeting happens.
An allegation is made.
The Government's current reforms place particular emphasis on clearer and more consistent support for children and Foster Carers during allegations, including clearer processes and ongoing support.
So perhaps one of the strongest propositions an organisation could make is not:
“Nothing will go wrong.”
It is:
“When fostering becomes difficult, this is what we will do.”
That is a meaningful promise.
Here is the test
Ask five people independently:
Why should someone foster with us?
One senior manager.
One recruitment person.
One social worker.
One marketer.
One existing Foster Carer.
Write down the answers.
Now compare them.
If the answers are completely different, the proposition may not be understood internally.
If everybody says:
“Because we offer excellent support and training,”
the proposition probably isn't specific enough.
Then ask a harder question.
What can we truthfully say that another provider cannot automatically say too?
That does not have to mean being spectacularly different.
It means being specific.
Perhaps:
your on-call model,
your local Foster Carer community,
your therapeutic support,
your respite arrangements,
your response times,
your training,
your supervision structure,
your allegation support,
your payments,
your specialist teams,
your matching philosophy,
your communication,
or the way Foster Carers participate in decisions.
Don't invent differentiation
This is important.
Sometimes marketing is told:
“We need a USP.”
So somebody has to manufacture one.
That is the wrong way around.
Do not invent an attractive proposition.
Discover the proposition already present in the organisation.
And if there genuinely isn't enough difference?
That is useful information.
Because the answer isn't better wording.
It may be service improvement.
If every competitor provides something better than you, marketing cannot solve that with copy.
That becomes a leadership and operational question.
Proposition before promotion
This is why Point 23 follows Point 22.
At Point 22 we established that marketing should not have to invent the recruitment strategy.
Now we go one step further.
Marketing should not have to invent the service proposition either.
The organisation needs to tell marketing:
This is what fostering with us genuinely means.
Marketing can then communicate it brilliantly.
Recruitment can explain it personally.
Existing Foster Carers can authenticate it.
Operations can deliver it.
And leadership can measure whether the promise remains true.
That is a Foster Carer proposition.
Not a strapline.
Not a campaign.
Not a list of generic benefits.
A clear answer to a very reasonable question:
“If I decide to foster, why should I choose you?”
And once we can answer that, another question immediately follows.
Are we communicating that proposition to everybody?
Or are we tailoring what we say to the Foster Carers we actually need?