BLAENAU Gwent County Borough Council will look to recruit specialist in-house foster carers with which to place vulnerable children and young people with more complex needs, writes Tom Moody.

This comes after the council’s executive committee approved a three-year pilot scheme, which had been brought forward by the children’s services arm of social services, who have struggled to attract foster carers in the area.

The scheme has been designed to save money on paying independent foster agencies, while also keeping foster children closer to their local area.

Cllr John Mason, the executive member for social services said: “We have seen in the local press that the number of looked-after children is rising and while I don’t think Blaenau Gwent is alone in this we do need to act now to recruit foster carers for these more vulnerable children and young people.

“We need to make being a specialist foster carer more of a profession for people in order to recruit the right skills.”

The new foster carers would be expected to treat being a foster carer as their main profession, and will be paid accordingly.

They would be working with social workers, doctors and psychologists in order to understand the behaviour of the children living with them.

The two types of placements that the foster carers will concentrate on. One placement will focus on children and young people with more complex needs and challenging behaviour. The other is a child and parent placement, which is were a parent and baby will be placed with a foster carer, where the parent needs assistance and guidance in looking after the baby.

Cllr Mason added: “We cannot keep paying nearly double in some cases for placements through independent agencies and we strongly believe this is the way forward in not only making savings in the long term but more importantly meeting the needs of these vulnerable children, giving them consistency and allowing them to stay in the local area.”