Scotland needs more families to avert a fostering crisis
Eight hundred foster families are urgently needed to avert a fostering crisis across Scotland this year, according a leading charity.
The Fostering Network said that because of the shortfall in available families, children could end up being uprooted from their school, friends and family while brothers and sisters could be split up.
There is a specific need for teenagers, siblings, disabled children and children of asylum seekers, the charity said.
Its figures reveal that 5,533 children live with more than 4,450 foster families across Scotland each day but that 800 more families were needed to make fostering more stable for young people.
We want Scotland to be the very best place for all children to grow up - Sara Lurie
Sara Lurie, director of the Fostering Network in Scotland, said: "For some children they're not able to be looked after by their mum or dad, no matter how much they might love them.
"Due to often sad and tragic circumstances, these children require the love and care of a foster family.
"We want Scotland to be the very best place for all children to grow up, and that means that for any child who is not able to live with their own birth family they still have the opportunity to experience normal family life.”
A survey last year showed two in five of fostered teenagers across the UK are already living with their third foster family since coming into care, and one in 20 are living with their tenth family in foster care.
Lurie added: “All children should feel safe, cared for, loved, understood and believed in. Foster carers give children this opportunity.”
