What matters in fostering adolescents?

The White Paper Care Matters: Time for change (2007) sets out the British government's plans to improve outcomes for children in care. For example, a tiered model of placement types, structured around the level of complexity of children's needs, will inform placement commissioning. However, on the whole the White Paper does not differentiate between the needs of children according to age, even though evidence suggests that providing foster care for adolescents can be more challenging and complex than providing care for younger children. Drawing on a longitudinal study of adolescent foster care, this paper highlights some of the needs specific to adolescents, as opposed to younger children; the skills and strategies that carers need to develop to care for adolescents and the supports that children's services and other agencies should provide for such placements. The paper argues that increased attention to these issues would assist in sustaining the placements of the great majority of fostered young people who will not have access to highly specialised treatment foster care