Foster Care Fortnight: the tiny quiet wins

Hanan Al-Najjar How it all began

I’ve always loved kids and thought I would have my own one day. When that didn’t happen, like many people, I considered adoption. Fostering, on the other hand, never really crossed my mind. I pretty much stumbled into it eight years ago, almost by accident. It turned out to be the best thing I’ve ever done.  

When I first started looking into becoming a foster carer, I didn’t know much about it. I didn’t even know there was a choice between a local authority and an independent agency. I just Googled it, clicked on the first link that popped up and filled in an expression of interest form. A social worker called me the next day, and just like that, my fostering journey began.

What I expected and what I found

In hindsight, I realise I was a bit naïve. I had this pie-in-the-sky idea about what fostering would be like. I never doubted I could give a child a safe and loving home, I just expected a constant stream of major breakthroughs and amazing achievements for the children in my care. Don’t get me wrong, those moments do happen. But they take time and patience and consistency. The essence of fostering is actually found in the tiny quiet wins that go unnoticed by everyone but the foster carer. Those small steps eventually lead to big milestones that no one else saw coming except for the person who witnessed every quiet victory along the way.

The reality of the paperwork

I was also clueless about the sheer amount of admin involved in fostering. I mean, it’s parenting, right? Well . . . almost. It’s parenting but with daily logs, supervisions, PEP meetings, semi-annual CLA reviews. Then there are the annual household reviews, health and safety inspections, training courses; the list goes on. I sometimes feel like my primary role of caring gets buried under an avalanche of paperwork.

Is the system broken?

Like many in the sector, I’ve been following the debate about the care system being ‘broken’. I’ve read some compelling arguments about what needs to be done to fix it. I don’t know if it’s broken beyond repair but I do know that we can’t get so wrapped up in the checklists and reports that we risk losing sight of what matters most: achieving better outcomes for the children in our care. Because it’s not about paperwork, it’s about the time and patience and consistency that leads to those tiny quiet wins.

Why I haven't given up 

My fostering journey has been a positive one overall. Has it been perfect? No. There have been times when I’ve felt undervalued by my fostering service, frustrated by inconsistencies in practice, disheartened by a lack of support during a particular crisis. But I also realise that the social worker teams are themselves struggling under an avalanche of bureaucracy leading to the same feelings of frustration. This is reflected in the high turnover rate of social workers; I’ve lost count of how many I’ve had but it’s more than 10 in less than eight years. So I would say that the system is definitely in crisis.

Helping to shape something better

But we shouldn’t give up. We can’t give up. Too many young lives are relying on us. This is why when the opportunity came up to join the team developing the revised fostering standards and guidance, I jumped at the chance. I want to bring my experience and my commitment to consistency to this work. My hope is that we can streamline and simplify the standards to clear away the avalanche of paperwork and bring the focus back on the children, where it belongs. I’m excited to be contributing to a solution that will help shape a system that prioritises better outcomes and celebrates the tiny quiet wins that make such a big difference to so many lives.

Fostering is all about giving children a safe, stable place to call home. Foster carers play a vital role in offering love, consistency, and support, helping children build relationships, recover from difficult experiences, and achieve their full potential. Through the government’s ongoing reforms to strengthen fostering, we are working to recruit and retain more foster carers, improve the support they receive, and ensure every child in care grows up with the stability and sense of belonging they deserve.

The 2026 fostering reforms contain significant measures aimed directly at strengthening local authority recruitment and retention, including: 

National action, including a national communications campaign  Enhanced regional collaboration through the expansion of regional recruitment hubs  Supporting innovation Strengthening support for foster carers  A simplified rulebook

https://childrenssocialcare.blog.gov.uk/2026/05/22/foster-care-fortnight-the-tiny-quiet-wins/

seen at 16:37, 22 May in Children’s social care.