York's Fostering and Sharing Care Services have been praised by independent inspectors as providing 'excellent' outcomes for the people who use them.

City of York Council's Fostering, Sharing Care Services and Adoption Services were inspected by the Commission for Social Care in February 2007, with the work of the council's Wenlock Terrace Children's Home and The Glen Short Breaks Home inspected in June by Ofsted.

Fostering, Sharing Care Services and The Glen were all described as providing 'excellent' services and Adoption and Wenlock Terrace were described as providing 'good' services. The inspectors particularly praised the work of the children's services team in managing the closure of Bismark Street (the former long stay children's home) in June 2006.

A review of the services also highlighted the success of the council's specialist fostering scheme for teenagers and severely disabled young people. The aim of the scheme is to increase the local availability of foster carers, with the most pressing need being to recruit and retain foster careers who can provide care for hard to place teenagers. The scheme was launched in October 2002 with capacity for 16 placements - now increased to 27.

As a consequence, the number of young people needing to be placed through Independent Foster Agencies (IFAs), out of the York area, has reduced to nine, from an average of 11.7 placements in 2004/05. It's hoped that the sustained recruitment and retention of further specialist scheme carers will reduce the need for IFA placements even further.

The council is keen to recruit more foster carers, but particularly for children aged over nine years of age. A larger 'pool' of foster carers would enable the right 'match' for a child or young person needing to be fostered, and would avoid them having to be sent to foster carers away from the York area. Despite recent success, the fostering team is aiming to recruit 14 additional fostering households in the next 16 months, to reach a total of 100 by 2009.

In addition, York's Adoption Panel recommended plans for adoptions for three children, matched nine children with adoptive families and approved six prospective adoption families in the last year (November 2006-October 2007).