POINT 85/100 — THE FIRST REFERRAL: EXCITEMENT, FEAR AND THE PRESSURE TO SAY YES
POINT 85/100 — THE FIRST REFERRAL: EXCITEMENT, FEAR AND THE PRESSURE TO SAY YES
The Foster Carer has been approved.
They have been assessed.
They have attended panel.
They have begun their post-approval development.
Perhaps the spare bedroom has been ready for months.
Then the telephone rings.
“We've got a child we'd like to talk to you about.”
This is the moment when fostering suddenly stops being theoretical.
And I think fostering services sometimes underestimate how psychologically significant that first referral can be.
For an experienced Foster Carer, a referral conversation may be familiar territory.
For somebody who has never fostered before, it can feel completely different.
This is it.
A child may actually be coming to live in my home.
Excitement and fear can arrive together
The newly approved Foster Carer may initially feel enormous excitement.
They have gone through months of recruitment and assessment to reach this point.
They want to foster.
They want to help a child.
So naturally, there may be a desire to say:
“Yes.”
But another thought can sit underneath that enthusiasm:
“They've just approved me. I can't turn down the first child they offer me.”
Or:
“If I say no, will they think I wasn't serious?”
Or:
“Maybe they won't ring me again.”
Or even:
“I need to prove I can do this.”
That creates a subtle danger.
DON'T CONFUSE ENTHUSIASM WITH READINESS FOR THIS PARTICULAR PLACEMENT.
Someone can be extremely motivated to foster while still not being the right Foster Carer for a particular child.
Those are entirely compatible positions.
The opposite reaction can have the same root
Now imagine another newly approved Foster Carer.
The referral arrives.
They read:
history;
behaviour;
risks;
school difficulties;
family circumstances;
previous placement information;
health information;
professional concerns.
Suddenly the reality looks frightening.
Their reaction becomes:
“I can't do this.”
Perhaps they begin wondering whether they should ever have become a Foster Carer.
On the surface, these two Foster Carers look completely different.
One seems overenthusiastic.
One appears reluctant.
But beneath both reactions may be something remarkably similar.
FEAR OF FAILURE.
One responds:
“I have to say yes because I need to prove I can foster.”
The other responds:
“I have to say no because I'm frightened I'll fail.”
Understanding that distinction matters.
The first referral should not become a test of commitment
A newly approved Foster Carer should not interpret the first referral as another stage of assessment.
They have already been approved.
This is not:
“Let's see whether you really meant it.”
The question is whether the particular proposed placement is appropriate.
That requires information.
Discussion.
Professional judgement.
Consideration of the household.
Understanding of support.
And space for the Foster Carer to think.
Current National Minimum Standard 15 says a fostering service should only suggest Foster Carers as a potential match where they can reasonably be expected to meet the child's assessed needs and where the impact of the placement on existing household members has been considered.
That is important.
The objective is not simply:
available bed + child needing placement = match.
A PLACEMENT CONVERSATION SHOULD INFORM — NOT SELL
Fostering services inevitably operate within significant placement pressure.
Children need families.
Vacancies matter.
Sufficiency matters.
Sometimes decisions genuinely have to be made quickly.
But organisational pressure must not turn a referral conversation into a sales exercise.
There is a difference between helping a Foster Carer understand why professionals believe a match might work and persuading them to accept something they are uncomfortable about.
The language matters.
Compare:
“We think you'd be brilliant for this child.”
with:
“Let's look properly at what this child may need and whether your household could realistically provide it.”
The first may be intended as encouragement.
To a newly approved Foster Carer it may feel like professional endorsement that they ought to say yes.
The second invites thought.
A PLACEMENT CONVERSATION SHOULD INFORM — NOT SELL.
Information is fundamental
The current National Minimum Standards are quite clear about information.
Standard 11 says children should be carefully matched and Foster Carers should have full information about the child.
Standard 15 goes further: before placement, the Foster Carer should receive all information held by the fostering service that they need to carry out their role effectively, including information about the support that will be available. Services should follow up gaps that could hinder safe care.
Yet there remains a significant gap between that expectation and Foster Carer experience.
The Fostering Network's State of the Nations' Foster Care 2024 found that among Foster Carers who had experienced a new match during the previous 24 months:
58% felt they had time to plan before the child moved in;
and only around 51% felt they had been given all the information they needed to care for that child.
That should concern us.
Because information doesn't merely protect the matching decision.
It influences the Foster Carer's confidence in that decision.
Written referral information can itself create fear
There is another side to this.
Referral information has to describe needs and risks.
But a newly approved Foster Carer may be reading this type of information for the first time in a real placement context.
A description that an experienced professional understands within context can look extremely stark on paper.
The Foster Carer may begin creating a picture of the child entirely around:
risk;
difficulty;
behaviour;
incidents;
diagnoses;
previous disruptions;
or professional concerns.
That can create fear before the child has even been met.
So information needs context.
Not minimisation.
Not euphemism.
Not withholding difficult information.
Context.
What happened?
When?
How frequently?
In what circumstances?
What appears to help?
What remains unknown?
What support might be required?
The job is not to make difficult information sound better.
It is to help the Foster Carer understand what the information actually means.
Unknown information matters too
One of the most important statements during a referral conversation may be:
“We don't know.”
There can be pressure in professional systems to sound certain.
But incomplete information should not somehow become apparent certainty simply because a placement is needed.
The standards themselves recognise this issue by requiring fostering services to follow up gaps in information with the responsible authority where those gaps may affect safe care.
So the conversation should distinguish:
WHAT WE KNOW
Information currently available.
WHAT WE THINK
Professional interpretation based on that information.
WHAT WE DON'T YET KNOW
Genuine gaps.
That is far more useful than giving the Foster Carer a false impression that every relevant question already has an answer.
The whole household needs to remain visible
A referral does not arrive at an empty bedroom.
It arrives in a household.
That is why current Standard 15 specifically refers to considering the impact of the placement on existing household members.
The question therefore isn't simply:
“Could this Foster Carer care for this child?”
It also includes:
What might this mean for their children?
Their partner?
Work arrangements?
Other children already placed?
Pets?
Transport?
Bedrooms?
School runs?
Household routines?
Their existing support network?
We will examine the whole-household impact much more closely in Point 88.
But it begins here.
THE FIRST REFERRAL REALITY CHECK
For the first referral in particular, I would encourage a simple four-part conversation.
This is not a statutory matching framework.
It is a management prompt designed to make sure excitement or placement pressure does not run ahead of understanding.
1. EVIDENCE
What do we actually know about the child and their needs?
What information is available?
What is missing?
What needs clarification?
2. RESPONSE
What is the Foster Carer's immediate reaction — and why?
Excitement?
Anxiety?
Fear?
Uncertainty?
A desire to prove themselves?
Don't automatically interpret the reaction.
Explore it.
3. HOUSEHOLD
What would this proposed placement mean for the whole fostering household?
Not theoretically.
Practically.
4. SUPPORT
If this placement happens, what support is actually available?
Not:
“Don't worry, we'll support you.”
What does support mean?
Who?
When?
How?
What additional help has been identified?
Standard 15 specifically expects information about available support to form part of the pre-placement information given to Foster Carers.
Beware the compliment
There is a surprisingly subtle pressure mechanism in placement conversations.
It sounds like this:
“We immediately thought of you.”
“You'd be perfect.”
“This child really needs somebody like you.”
Again, this may be completely well-intentioned.
But consider how it sounds to somebody approved three weeks ago.
They may hear:
“The professionals think I can do this, so perhaps I shouldn't question it.”
Encouragement matters.
But encouragement must not displace informed decision-making.
Sometimes the most confidence-building message to a new Foster Carer may actually be:
“We want you to think this through properly.”
The shortage of Foster Carers makes this harder — not less important
The sector is operating under considerable sufficiency pressure.
There are children for whom suitable fostering homes are difficult to identify.
That pressure is real.
But scarcity increases the importance of good decisions.
The Fostering Network's 2024 findings demonstrate weaknesses in the matching environment: only just over half of responding services said they always or usually received all the information required from children's Social Workers to inform matching.
When information is incomplete and suitable carers are scarce, pressure can travel down the system.
Commissioning pressure.
Placement pressure.
Team pressure.
Then potentially:
Foster Carer pressure.
Managers need to make sure it doesn't.
Remember the child in this conversation
This Point is being examined from the Foster Carer's experience because this is a Foster Carer Recruitment Review.
But good decision-making is fundamentally child-centred.
The National Minimum Standards require careful matching and emphasise the child's needs, wishes and feelings.
Children and young people have also reported wanting more information about Foster Carers and, where possible, opportunities to learn about or meet them before moving in.
So slowing down a decision where circumstances permit is not merely about protecting Foster Carers from pressure.
It is about improving the possibility that the proposed home genuinely works for the child.
What should the Foster Carer feel after the conversation?
Not necessarily:
“Yes.”
Success cannot be measured simply by whether the referral converts into a placement.
A successful conversation might conclude:
“I understand the child better.”
“I understand what's unknown.”
“I understand why you considered us.”
“I understand what support would be available.”
“I understand what this could mean for our household.”
Then an informed decision can follow.
That is a much healthier outcome.
Why this matters for retention
We need to avoid claiming that a difficult first referral causes Foster Carers to leave.
Retention is far more complex.
But the first referral begins testing several things we have spent months building:
trust;
expectations;
confidence;
relationships;
and the Foster Carer's belief about whether the organisation listens to them.
If somebody's earliest experience becomes:
“I felt pressured into it.”
that is a poor foundation.
If instead it becomes:
“They helped me understand it and they listened to what I thought,”
the relationship begins differently.
This is where recruitment is increasingly becoming retention.
The first referral is not just about finding a placement
It is also the moment when a newly approved Foster Carer learns something about the fostering service.
They learn:
whether difficult questions are welcome;
whether uncertainty is acceptable;
whether information is transparent;
whether their household matters;
whether support is specific;
and whether saying what they really think is safe.
That first conversation therefore carries more weight than we might imagine.
DON'T CONFUSE ENTHUSIASM WITH READINESS FOR THIS PARTICULAR PLACEMENT.
And equally:
DON'T CONFUSE FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN WITH UNSUITABILITY TO FOSTER.
Point 86 will take the next step.
Because once we understand the emotional pressure surrounding the first referral, we need to ask something even more fundamental:
Does the Foster Carer genuinely believe they are allowed to say no?
Or:
“I'm not sure.”