Placement scheme to go Surrey-wide

A children’s placement support scheme in Surrey is to be rolled out
across the county after it helped reduce the number of children in
care homes and saved the county hundreds of thousands of
pounds.

Since its launch two years ago, the Community and Placement Support
Team has halved the number of children that are placed in care
homes outside the county.

The team – set up by Surrey Youth Support Services but run now by
voluntary group RPS Rainer – has worked on 134 cases. Sixty-three
per cent of at-risk foster placements have been successfully
stabilised and referrals have fallen to just 3 per cent.