Funding for extensions to allow foster parents to give more children a home

A pioneering scheme is helping to pay for building work so families can offer more places to those in care

- Rachel Sylvester

Over the past nine years Debbie and Les Cope from Stockport have taken in 12 foster children, raising them alongside their own three daughters.

They are now fostering two young people, aged 17 and 10, as well as a four-month-old baby. At Christmas there were 20 for lunch, including their 10 grandchildren.

"The best thing we ever did was to foster," Debbie, 62, said. "I'd be lying if I didn't say there were difficult days. Often these children have got trauma that they've brought with them. But they're still children, and they deserve the best. If you walk in here, you are part of our family."

In future the Copes will be able to take in even more young people. They have just completed an extension to their house, paid for by a £65,000 grant from Stockport council under a scheme for foster carers. An extra bedroom, bathroom and a bigger kitchen have been added to their home, under the Greater Manchester Room Makers programme.

Christine McLoughlin, director of children's services at Stockport council, said a place in an independent children's home costs about £286,000 a year. Funding the Copes' building work is equivalent to paying for less than 12 weeks to keep a child in residential care. "It's a no-brainer. It saves a lot of money, and more importantly it's better for the children," she said. "Their outcomes are significantly improved if they're in a home situation rather than a residential unit."

Now the government is planning to introduce the scheme across England as part of a radical strategy to boost fostering, to be unveiled next month. Foster parents will be able to have an extension, conversion or refurbishment funded by the state.