WHY are there so few disabled foster carers in the UK? That's the question of a new major research programme led by the University of Worcester.

“It’s no secret that we need more foster carers to come forward,” said Dr Peter Unwin, Principal Lecturer in Social Work at the university and lead researcher for the project.

“The Fostering Network estimates that we need 7,000 more carers in England, and yet when we surveyed almost 500 foster agencies to ask if they had any disabled foster carers on their books, only six responded, and only a couple of those had some very limited experience of working with disabled people.”

The research, entitled ‘Mutual benefits: the potential of disabled people as foster carers’, has a £142,574 grant from the £5million DRILL programme – Disability Research on Independent Living and Learning – funded by the National Lottery.

“Disabled people can often offer a stable and supportive environment but are not thought of as obvious candidates for fostering. This project should help identify why that is and what we can do to change it,” Dr Unwin added.

Think tank Shaping Our Lives and agency The Foster Care Cooperative will work with the university.

“There’s a stigma attached to disability that determines how agencies view disabled people who might apply to be foster carers,” Dr Unwin said. “They tend to see only the disability and what you can’t do. It’s a negative mind-set that is robbing children in need of a caring environment.”