For Local Authority
We turn people who want to foster into confident carers who stay
You’re not short of interest. You’re losing it. We support your team to assess foster carers and turn more of the people who apply into in-house carers who stay.
What We Do
3 services for Local Authority fostering teams, from first enquiry to the end of a carer’s first year.
Step 1
Why Care Diagnostic
We find where your fostering service loses people
A detailed review of your fostering service, from first enquiry to the end of year one.
Step 2
Why Care Assessment
We support your team to assess in small cohorts
Your social workers assess foster carers in small groups, on one shared digital assessment, ready for your panel.
Step 3
Why Care First Year Support
We support new foster carers so that they stay
A Fostering Mentor, training, and group supervision through the first year.
How It Works
From the first call to the end of year one
We support your service at every stage, from the first call to the end of a new carer's first year.
Free
A Conversation
A call about your fostering service, with no commitment.
5 minutes
Self-asessment
Your team answers a few questions. We come back with a clear scope, cost, and timeline
6 weeks
The Diagnostic
Data, interviews, workshops, and document review. You get an improvement plan at the end.
Around 4 months
The Assessment
Your social workers assess foster applicants in groups of 5-10, with our support on the Why Care platform.
Your panel date
Your panel decides
We prepare the applicants for panel and your panel makes the final decision.
12 months
First Year Support
A Fostering Mentor, 4 training days, the same peer group, and group supervision.
Our Services
What each service includes
3 services that work as one, so applicants and new carers are supported at every stage.
Why Care Diagnostic
A review of your fostering services
We find where your service loses applicants and carers, and show you how to fix it.
- We speak with everyone: social workers, panel members, managers, young people in care, and foster carers, including those who withdrew or resigned
- We compare your data from first enquiry to approval and beyond, against national figures
- We review real assessments, observe a panel, and read what applicants are sent
- A full report with recommendations at the end
- Evidence for your next sufficiency plan
Why Care Assessment
We support your team to assess in small cohorts
For assessing:
Your social workers assess. We provide the digital platform, build cohorts of carers and provide training and support. Applicants are ready for panel in around 4 months, while reducing social worker workload.
- Applicants go through assessment together, in groups of 5-10, and finish with a support network
- Your assessing social worker and each applicant work in one digital assessment and see the same progress
- Practice scenarios co-designed and co-delivered by care-experienced young people, so applicants understand real experiences of care
- 4 days of training for applicants during assessment, led by social workers
- A Fostering Mentor from the start
- A visual carer profile for every applicant
Why Care First Year Support
A full year of support from approval
New foster carers are never on their own in the year they need it most
- A Fostering Mentor: an experienced foster carer to turn to
- 4 training days for new carers, mapped to the new Fostering Development Standards
- The same peer group they were assessed with, so nobody starts fostering alone
- Regular group supervision with others in their cohort
- Support starts the day they’re approved, with no gap before their first child arrives
- Takes pressure off your supervising social workers in carer’s first year
Who does what
Your social workers assess. Your panel decides. We bring the structure, the platform, and the support around them.
Why Care
- Runs the Diagnostic and writes the improvement plan
- Provides the Why Care platform your social workers assess on
- Supports your assessing social workers from first visit to panel
- Runs the cohorts and the 8 training days for applicants and new carers
- Designs and delivers the practice scenarios with care-experienced young people
- Matches every applicant with a Fostering Mentor who supports them throughout their application and First Year Support
- Delivers First Year Support
Your team
- Shares data and gives us access to people for the Diagnostic.
- You assessing social workers carry out each assessment, working with applicants in the shared assessment
- Keeps the professional judgement on every assessment
- Your supervising social workers carry on supporting carers once they’re approved
Your panel and ADM
- Hears each application
- Makes every approval decision
- We prepare the applicants for panel and your panel makes the final decision.
What Makes Us Different
6 things built into every Why Care service
Each one tackles a point where services lose people. Together, they take foster carers from first enquiry to the end of their first year.
Ready for panel in around 4 months
Applicants move through assessment at a steady pace, so fewer lose interest while they wait.
Assessed together, in small groups
Your applicants go through assessment together, in groups of 5-10, and finish with a support network.
One shared digital assessment
Your assessing social worker and each applicant work in one digital assessment and see the same progress.
Shaped by care-experienced young people
Practice scenarios co-designed and co-delivered by care-experienced young people, so applicants understand the real experiences of care.
8 days of training for your carers, led by social workers
Applicants get 4 days of training during assessment and 4 more in their first year as carers, so every foster carer starts with the same foundations.
A Fostering Mentor for every new carer
Every new foster carer is matched with a Fostering Mentor and supported through their application and first year.
Who We Are
Lived experience and professional expertise, in one team
Our team brings first-hand experience of care together with social work, change management, and policy expertise.
We know the new standards from the inside
Niketa Sanderson-Gillard, Founder of Why Care, was the lead drafter on the national minimum standards. Luke Rodgers BEM was the engagement lead.
Everything we deliver is built to help your service team meet them.
Niketa Sanderson-Gillard
Founder & CEO
Niketa founded Why Care to give Local Authorities a better way to support foster carers through our care-focused delivery model. A qualified social worker, she has assessed, approved, and supervised foster carers, ran children's social care policy and workforce programmes at the Department for Education, and led the drafting of the new national fostering standards. Her Churchill Fellowship explored international models of foster care.
Why I care: fostering works best when carers are set up to succeed from day one.
Luke Rogers BEM
Head of Partnerships
Luke builds Why Care's partnerships with Local Authorities and helps shape how we talk about our work. A lived experience leader and founder of The Care Leaders, he has spent more than a decade co-designing projects with Local Authorities, The Fostering Network and the Department for Education. He received the British Empire Medal in 2018 for his work with young people and families.
Why I care: because I've seen the care system from both sides, first as a child in it and now as a leader working to change it. I know what it's like to live and work in care and I want every child to live in a home with people who care.
John Rolph
Head of Practice
John leads practice across Why Care's Diagnostic, Assessment and First Year Support model, so Local Authorities get carers who are well prepared and well supported. A Social Work England registered social worker with over a decade in children's social care, he has worked in child protection, led teams supporting teenagers at risk of entering care, and assessed and supported foster carers.
Why I care: I've seen how much the right foster carer can change a young person's life.
Abbey Watt
Operations Manager
Abbey works across operations and programme delivery, supporting the team and the Local Authorities we work with. Originally from Aotearoa, New Zealand, she has spent over a decade in and around children's social care in England, including supporting the Independent Review of Children's Social Care.
Why I care: talking to people with experience of care has taught me that it really matters that the system, and the people within it, get it right.
Sidra Nabeel
Programme & Operations Co-ordinator
Sidra co-ordinates events, programme delivery and administrative support at Why Care. She works within the team to arrange and assist with logistics, as well as aiding and supporting applicants through the assessment process. She approaches her work at Why Care with diligence, adaptability, and an analytical eye.
Why I care: because I believe that every applicant deserves to have a stress-free assessment process.
Alexandra McKinney
Brand & Design Lead
Alexandra designs how Why Care looks and sounds, so foster carers and Local Authorities can find us and understand what we do. As a freelancer, she crafted design assets and brand identities for charities and social enterprises, including Why Care, before joining the team. She now shapes everything from our brand to our website and social channels.
Why I care: I believe clear, thoughtful design can make assessment simpler and help great carers stay.
Why We Exist
Interest isn't the problem. It's what happens next
The sector keeps trying to recruit its way out of a process problem. Good people give up, or start fostering frustrated, and children are matched with whoever is available, not whoever is right for them. We exist to change that.
Interest drops before people apply
of 125,195 initial enquiries became an application in 2022-23 (12% for Local Authorities).
The Diagnostic follows the applicant's journey from first enquiry, so you can see where interest drops away.
Most applicants withdraw before panel
households withdrew from assessment in 2024)-25, while 2,050 were approved. Fewer than 1% were rejected.
Applicants go through assessment together, in small groups, so fewer give up along the way.
Assessments take too long
of approved Local Authority applications took longer than the expected 8 months to reach panel in 2022-23
With our support, your applicants are ready for panel in around 4 months, with less paperwork for your social workers.
More carers leave than join
fewer fostering households in 2024-25: 4,690 left and 4,430 joined
The Diagnostic shows where your service loses carers and what makes them stay.
New carers leave early
of Local Authority carers who left in 2021-22 had been approved for less than 2 years.
First Year Support gives every new foster carer and kinship carer a Fostering Mentor, training, and group
Every carer lost has a cost
more a year per child for an agency placement than an in-house one in 2020.
We help you turn the interest you already have into in-house carers who stay, and rely less on agency placements.
Figures cover England. Sources: Ofsted, Fostering in England 2024-25 and 2021-22. Ofsted, Recruitment and retention in mainstream fostering (March 2024). Competition and Markets Authority, Children’s social care market study (March 2022), and CMA data as reported by Community Care.
Join us in turning people who want to foster into confident carers who stay.
Right carers. Right home. Right time.
Book a Call With UsThe Why Care Guide
Download our guide
All 3 services, how they fit together, and what your service gets at each stage.
Share it with your head of service or commissioning lead.
Questions
Questions Commissioners Ask
Talk to us about your
fostering and kinship service
Book a free call, with no commitment, or email hello@whycare.org.uk