2026: A Pivotal year for children's social care
As we stand on the threshold of 2026, our children's social care system faces a year that could prove transformative. With reform of key services gaining momentum, alongside ongoing pressures challenging the system, this year will test us in meeting our collective commitment and duties to our most vulnerable children. Looking ahead we must also acknowledge and confront an uncomfortable truth. Many of the warnings given over a decade ago - underfunding and service cuts - are why we are where we are in terms of facing challenges in relation to meeting sufficiency and trying to reverse a trend of under investment in early intervention.
A system under pressure
The converging pressures that threatened to overwhelm children's social care were highlighted and warned about in the early 2010s. Rising demand, increased complexity of need, shrinking budgets, and growing inequality were all identified as challenges we faced.
15 years later, as we enter 2026, these challenges haven't just continued, they have intensified. The number of children in care rose year on year (although recently this has slowed and there has been a slight reduction). The predicted funding crisis materialised exactly as warned, with local authorities making impossible choices between statutory duties and preventative services. Early intervention was the first casualty and we are now trying to address a system that has responded to that with later crisis interventions.
Local authorities report spending ever-larger portions of their budgets on children's services yet struggling to meet need and demand. The shortage of foster carers persists across almost all regions. The complexity of children's needs, particularly around mental health and trauma continues to grow.
Change on the horizon: learning from the past?
The government's commitment to transforming children's social care offers genuine hope, but only if we learn lessons from the past. Reform cannot be another round of structural reorganisation that shuffles the same inadequate resources around newly created bodies. It must come with sustained, long-term investment. We have had some welcome investment but to fully deliver, change must be properly funded and sustained.
Early intervention and family support are receiving renewed emphasis, with recognition that this is both more cost-effective than crisis intervention and fundamentally the right thing to do. We are also seeing increasing focus on family first approaches, aiming to keep children in their families where that is safe to do so and in their best interests.
Fostering, adoption and kinship: the thread of support
As 2026 unfolds, a number of significant developments will be reshaping practice. Fostering reform, new duties in kinship care and changes to adoption support, along with NHS reform, will all have an impact.
Fostering reform is on the agenda. The Minister, Josh MacAlister MP has a keen focus on addressing the recruitment crisis and support gaps in the sector. The focus is shifting beyond recruitment drives to considering more fundamental change to the fostering system. Much is being made of regional approaches and we shall have to wait to see what becomes of Fostering Recruitment Hubs and how the new Regional Care Cooperatives work with these. The South East Regional Care Cooperative, Home + Future, has only just been established and set out its first sufficiency strategy. For practitioners we know how hard they have worked (whether in IFAs or in LAs) to recruit and retain carers. We will be supporting our members through this period of change to make improvements to carers' experiences and to the lives of children.
Kinship care practice is receiving overdue attention with the continuation of the implementation of the 2023 National Kinship Strategy. Looking ahead to the coming year we will see key measures such as mandatory Family Group Decision Making before applying to take a child into care come into force. We will also see the new requirement for all LAs to have a Kinship Local Offer in place. We have set up a community of practice to work with local authorities offering peer-to-peer support in developing their local offers. We will also see the Kinship Law Commission, which is looking into reforming the law to improve the current complex landscape and make options for kinship care for children simpler and easier to navigate, publish its consultation paper.
Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund Throughout the year there has been significant coverage of the cuts to the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund. We have been working with partners to highlight how important the fund is and the need for adopted children and children in kinship care to receive the right support at the right time. We are waiting further information about the fund from Government and we are anticipating a public engagement process in the new year about the future of the fund.
The common theme across adoption, fostering and kinship care is that carers need support and that children's needs should be met. Whether a child is in foster care, kinship care or with adoptive parents, the challenges of enabling and supporting children who have experienced trauma feel safe, loved and nurtured are real. Fragmentation of support based on legal status and postcode isn't helpful. In 2026, we have the opportunity to create a more coherent support landscape where the child's needs drive the response. This means therapeutic services that follow the child regardless of legal order. Training opportunities should be accessible to carers, along with financial, practical and emotional support that recognises and responds to the reality of raising children who have experiences of loss and trauma. It means social workers have time to build relationships rather than just complete assessments. It means recognising that supporting carers is supporting children. It also means linking in agencies and workers from across health, education and social care to work together in partnership to meet those children's needs.
Keeping children at the centre
2026 arrives with the weight of opportunities missed over many years. Next year we can choose a different path forward. The will for reform appears strong. The evidence about what works continues to accumulate. Across the country, dedicated workers, parents and carers prove every day that when we get it right, we can transform children's lives. The Bright Spots research highlights this.
The question now is whether we'll finally match that commitment with the resources and systemic change required.
For all the members of CoramBAAF and everyone out there working with children we just want to say thank you for all your hard work and dedication to improving the lives of children. We know the work is not always easy, you work in a context that can be very challenging, but we also know you can make a huge and positive difference. We will be with you in the new year, supporting and standing with you through the reforms, to make the best difference for our children.
James Bury, Head of Policy, Research and Development, CoramBAAF