Foster Care Link

Inspection report for independent fostering agency: Foster Care Link 1 Foster Care Link Foster Care Link

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66B Cazenove Road, Stoke Newington, London N16 6AA Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this independent fostering agency

This fostering service supports Muslim children across London, the Midlands and the North West. Its aim is to place children with foster families who reflect their cultural and religious backgrounds. The agency supports children with a broad range of needs, including children with disabilities and unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, in various arrangements, including short- and long-term placements and ‘staying put’.

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Information about this independent fostering agency

At the time of the inspection, the agency was supporting 61 children and had 62 approved fostering households.

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Overall experiences and progress of

children and young people, taking into account

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outstanding

How well children and young people are helped and protected outstanding

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outstanding

The effectiveness of leaders and managers outstanding

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outstanding

The independent fostering agency provides highly effective services that consistently exceed the standards of good. The actions of the independent fostering agency contribute to significantly improved outcomes and positive experiences for children and young people.

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outstanding

Date of last inspection: 20 February 2023

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outstanding

Overall judgement at last inspection: outstanding

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outstanding

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report for independent fostering agency: Foster Care Link 2

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outstanding

Foster carers provide exceptionally strong care and, as a result, children achieve consistently positive outcomes. Most children remain living with their foster carers for many years. This stability enables children to develop secure, trusting relationships.

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outstanding

Children are prepared well to move in with their foster family. A children’s guide is available in various formats, including audible guides in different languages and dialects. This ensures children receive information appropriate to their needs, helping them to feel secure, reducing their uncertainty and promoting stability.

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outstanding

Children’s wishes and feelings are listened to as part of the moving-in process, ensuring they feel valued and that their individual needs are understood. Foster carers’ experience, skills and knowledge are carefully matched to each child, enabling them to provide highly responsive and nurturing care. Most children are culturally matched with their foster carers; when this is not possible, foster carers show a strong commitment to learning from the children and their lived experiences. Foster carers seek guidance and peer support to ensure they understand and meet each child’s unique needs.

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outstanding

Children’s religious needs are promoted and fully understood. Children are supported to practise their identified faith, whether or not the foster carers are of the same faith.

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outstanding

Unplanned endings for children are rare. When an unplanned ending did occur, staff explored the circumstances that led to this, but there was no follow-up with the child to ensure they understood the reasons. This was a missed opportunity to provide the child with a sense of understanding and closure.

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outstanding

Children experience comprehensive support in relation to their health and wellbeing. Foster carers work with a range of healthcare professionals to develop an understanding of each child’s physical, emotional and developmental needs. This is particularly impactful for unaccompanied children whose histories may not be known or readily available. This ensures children’s health and wellbeing needs are understood and can be met in a timely way.

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outstanding

Children who have complex needs or who have experienced significant trauma are supported by foster carers who complete targeted, high ‑ quality training. This equips carers with the insight and confidence to understand children’s lived experiences and to respond with sensitivity and skill. Foster carers work with specialist professionals to support the child. As a result, children benefit from safe, trusting, secure relationships that promote their overall wellbeing and enable them to make meaningful progress. Inspection report for independent fostering agency: Foster Care Link 3 Foster carers advocate exceptionally well to ensure children attend the schools that best meet their needs. As a result, children make exceptional progress. All 61 children are attending school, most have no gaps in attendance, and attainment remains consistently strong. Foster carers and agency staff take pride in celebrating

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outstanding

children’s achievements, with regional celebratory events recognising children and foster carers’ achievements and reinforcing their sense of success.

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outstanding

Children are supported to develop independence skills that are in line with their needs. They are helped to budget, prepare meals and travel independently. Many children remain with their foster families under staying put arrangements when they become young adults. When children do move on to live independently, they maintain their relationships with their carers, reflecting the secure and established bonds they have built.

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outstanding

Leaders and managers are visible, approachable and known to the children, reflecting the openness of the agency. This strong, relational practice ensures that children feel valued, informed and consistently supported.

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outstanding

Safeguarding children is deeply embedded in the agency’s culture. All staff and carers involved in the service place children’s safety at the centre of their practice. This is evident in decision ‑ making, the quality of relationships and the outcomes for children.

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outstanding

The registered manager maintains strong oversight of safeguarding activity and ensures that staff and carers benefit from up ‑ to ‑ date research and guidance on good practice. This creates a confident workforce who understand children’s vulnerabilities and respond with clarity and purpose. Staff use reflective discussions, supervision and learning opportunities to continually strengthen their safeguarding practice.

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outstanding

The agency prepares and supports carers extremely well to respond to children who may go missing or face risks such as exploitation, neglect, abuse, self ‑ harm or bullying. Such incidents are rare, but foster carers can and do respond to meet and reduce this risk when children are at risk of harm.

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outstanding

Staff and carers identify risks quickly and understand them very well. They use detailed knowledge of each child’s history and experiences to create highly effective plans that reduce harm and increase safety. Foster carers use this guidance confidently, and their nurturing care helps children to become increasingly safe over time. If there are unknowns about a child’s experiences, staff and carers demonstrate professional curiosity, caution and effective planning to reduce future risks.

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outstanding

Children are actively involved with their foster carers’ social workers, who meet with them at least every 12 weeks. These sessions provide dedicated time for children to Inspection report for independent fostering agency: Foster Care Link 4 share their experiences of living in their foster homes. Their views are listened to, sensitively managed and acted on by the social worker, ensuring that the children feel heard and valued.

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outstanding

Children are confident in raising concerns or making a complaint. Notably, no child has made a complaint in the past 3 years, which strongly reflects their positive experiences of care and the high ‑ quality support provided by foster carers and the service.

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outstanding

When allegations are made, they are managed in a robust way. The appropriate agencies are informed and advice is taken and acted on. The outcomes of these investigations are shared with children in considerate ways.

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outstanding

Staff are highly skilled and use their extensive experience to deliver exceptional support to foster carers, helping carers to keep children safe online and in the community. This commitment to safeguarding is mirrored at every level of the agency, including by the reviewing officer, panel chair and decision-maker, all of whom demonstrate outstanding vigilance. Children said they feel safe, listened to and protected.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Leadership and management are outstanding. Leaders provide strong, visible direction and maintain a focus on improving the lives of children and young people. The registered manager is a diligent, empathetic and robust leader who uses their extensive professional expertise to strengthen practice across the agency.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Directors take an active role in shaping the service and set goals that drive continuous development. Their strategic oversight has enabled the successful and well ‑ managed expansion of the service.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Monitoring and evaluation are robust and effective. Leaders track children’s progress closely, including their educational outcomes, and use this information to drive improvement. There is a collaborative approach across the agency to learn from feedback and implement improvements. However, on one occasion, the learning from an incident did not lead to training to strengthen practice.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Staff are well qualified, motivated and genuinely committed to improving children’s lives. They receive regular supervision, appraisal and high ‑ quality training, all of which keep their practice strong. Staff describe the team as supportive, creative and focused on achieving positive outcomes for children.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Foster carers receive outstanding training and consistent guidance, enabling them to recognise concerns early and act decisively to protect children. The agency commissions high ‑ quality training from external specialists and combines this with the extensive experience and professional knowledge of its social workers. Staff use this exceptionally well to equip foster carers with the confidence and skills they need. Training is collaborative, reflective and tailored to the specific vulnerabilities of Inspection report for independent fostering agency: Foster Care Link 5 the children. The agency also values the strengths of its foster carers and actively involves them in delivering training, including specialist sessions for supporting unaccompanied children. This approach creates a highly skilled, well ‑ prepared fostering agency that provides children with safe, responsive and nurturing care.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Leaders maintain strong and effective relationships with placing authorities and social workers. Communication is timely, purposeful and focused on meeting children’s needs. Staff provide regular updates and work proactively with local authorities when any placement issues arise. Feedback from professionals is consistently positive.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The whole team is committed to ensuring children continue to have positive experiences and make progress. Leaders have realistic but ambitious plans for the future, and the agency is in a strong position to maintain its high standards. There is a shared drive across the organisation to keep improving and to build on the progress already made. Inspection report for independent fostering agency: Foster Care Link 6

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Statutory requirements

This section sets out the actions that the registered person(s) must take to meet the Care Standards Act 2000, The Fostering Services (England) Regulations 2011 and the national minimum standards. The registered person(s) must comply within the given timescales.

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that all persons employed by them—

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Requirement Due date

receive appropriate training. (Regulation 21 (4)(a))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the registered person must ensure any learning identified from significant incidents is supported by training to reduce the likelihood of future incidents and ensure staff have clear guidance on reporting. 26 June 2026

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Recommendation

 The registered person should ensure that when children are leaving the foster family, they are helped to understand the reasons why they are leaving, including, if appropriate, when endings are unplanned. (‘Fostering services: national minimum standards’, 11.5)

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Information about this inspection

Inspectors have looked closely at the experiences and progress of children and young people, using the social care common inspection framework. This inspection was carried out under the Care Standards Act 2000 to assess the effectiveness of the service, how it meets the core functions of the service as set out in legislation, and to consider how well it complies with The Fostering Services (England) Regulations 2011 and the national minimum standards. Inspection report for independent fostering agency: Foster Care Link 7

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Independent fostering agency details

Registered provider address: 66B Cazenove Road, Stoke Newington N16 6AA

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Inspector

Richard Wyper, Social Care Inspector Inspection report for independent fostering agency: Foster Care Link 8 to achieve excellence in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages. It regulates and inspects childcare and children’s social care, and inspects the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, further education and skills, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It assesses council children’s services, and inspects services for looked after children, safeguarding and child protection.

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Inspector

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Inspector

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Inspector

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