England expands family finding for children in care

The government's new announcement is about something simple but often missing in the care system: helping children keep hold of the people who matter to them. Under plans published by the Department for Education, children in care and care leavers in England will get more help to reconnect with relatives, trusted adults, former carers, teachers and others who have shaped their lives. That work will be backed by £8.4 million to expand family finding programmes across England through the Enduring Relationships programme. **What this means:** this is not just about tracing someone from the past. It is about building a stronger circle of support around young people who too often have had to manage change, separation and isolation on their own.

Family finding can sound technical, but the idea is fairly human. Specially trained co-ordinators work with care-experienced children and young people to identify who feels important, who they want contact with, and whether a safe reconnection is possible. That could mean an aunt, a grandparent, a former foster carer, a teacher, a social worker or another adult who offered steadiness at a difficult time. The Department for Education describes existing schemes as a way of helping young people locate and make contact with people from their past. **What this means:** the child or young person is not being told who should matter to them. The starting point is their memory, their sense of identity and, crucially, their safety.

This matters because the scale of disruption in care is still huge. Government figures show more than 81,000 children were in care in England in March 2025. In 2024, one in ten children in care moved home three or more times in a single year, and more than one in five were living over 20 miles from their home community. If you are moved again and again, relationships do not just fade; they can be broken by distance, paperwork and lack of time. **What this means:** a policy about connections is also a policy about belonging. For many young people, knowing where you come from and who still cares about you is part of feeling safe in the present, not just curiosity about the past.

The government says earlier family finding programmes are already showing results. Since 2023, 25 programmes have been funded, and children and young people who took part gained an average of nearly two additional meaningful relationships. More than a third reconnected with immediate family members, while others rebuilt ties with former teachers, social workers and other trusted adults. There is also a research case behind this. A study by the Policy Institute at King's College London for the Centre for Homelessness Impact found that one family finding approach reduced the risk of homelessness by 10 per cent. Forthcoming findings cited by the government suggest participants gained an average of 2.2 extra connections. **What this means:** these may look like modest numbers on paper, but one stable adult can change housing, work, education and mental health outcomes in very real ways.

The wider policy shift is just as important as the funding. The Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026, described by ministers as the biggest overhaul of children's social care in a generation, makes enduring relationships a clearer priority for the care system. That is a response to a long-running problem: too many decisions have been driven by short-term risk management, placement shortages and immediate crisis rather than by helping children keep healthy ties to family and community. Under the reforms, social workers and local authorities are supposed to place relationships closer to the centre of decision-making. That includes stronger family group decision-making, more support for reunification where it is safe, and wider use of Family Network Support Packages. **What this means:** family reunion is not being presented as a blanket answer. Safety still matters, and every reconnection has to be handled with care.

For care leavers, the promise is not limited to reunions. The Act also expands Staying Close support to all care leavers in England, meaning local authorities are expected to keep helping with housing, health and employment up to the age of 25. Alongside that, the government says it is working to create 10,000 new foster care places this Parliament, has put £2.4 billion into the Families First Partnership programme, and is piloting a new financial allowance for kinship carers. This is where it helps to read the announcement with both hope and caution. The direction is clear: keep families together where possible, strengthen kinship care, and stop treating care as a set of emergencies. But extra programmes do not instantly fix shortages of foster carers, stretched services or children being placed far from home. **What this means:** the policy sounds thoughtful; the harder test will be whether young people feel the difference in daily life.

There were two other changes published alongside the family finding plans. First, the Department for Education launched an expert-led review of children's homes. The review will look at how homes can be more specialised for children with the most complex needs, and what staff need in terms of training, qualifications, leadership and career development to build stable, lasting relationships with the children they support. Second, the department opened a six-week public consultation on new statutory guidance for the Information Sharing Duty, with responses due by 14 July 2026. The new legal duty comes into force on 30 September 2026 and is meant to help councils, social workers, healthcare professionals and carers share safeguarding information more effectively. **What this means:** for practitioners, relationship-based care is being paired with firmer expectations around co-ordination and child protection.

If you strip away the policy language, the question here is a human one: does the care system help children and young adults keep, rebuild and trust the relationships that most people rely on without thinking? The government is now saying that it should. That matters, because care-experienced people are still far more likely to face unemployment, homelessness and poor mental ill health later on, and isolation is part of that story. For children in care, care leavers, foster carers, social workers and extended families, this reform is best understood as a shift in priorities. **What this means:** the system is being asked to do more than keep children safe in the moment. It is being asked to help them stay connected to the people who can make adulthood feel less lonely, more stable and more possible.