Shows / Foster Care Uncovered
Foster Care Uncovered
The Truth from the Frontline.
No filter, no spin, no hiding. The stories behind the headlines, the truths behind the system - exposing, confronting, and moving foster care forward.
Hosted by Sarah Anderson, CEO of FosterWiki & Co-founder of the NFCQ and Louise Allen, Bestselling Author & Founder of Spark Sisterhood.
All views shared in this podcast reflect the personal opinions of the hosts alone. They are not intended as factual assertions about any person or organisation, nor do they…
Episodes
Foster Care UncoveredIn Conversation with Tim Barclay, CEO of National Fostering Group
This week on Foster Care Uncovered, Sarah and Louise are delighted to be in conversation with Tim Barclay, CEO of National Fostering Group, the UK's largest…
Foster Care UncoveredThey Sold You Out!
They Sold You Out! You’re just the Cash Cow This week, The Fostering Network meets with the National Union of Professional Foster Carers, then goes straight to…
Foster Care UncoveredThe Gloves Are Off...
The Gloves Are Off...Is the old order cracking? This week, Sarah and Louise ask whether the old order in fostering is finally beginning to crack. From the…
Foster Care UncoveredThe Big Lie: The Spin, Promises & Propaganda
The Big Lie: The Spin, Promises & Propaganda Behind the Latest Government Launch This week, Sarah and Louise take apart Josh MacAlister’s grand launch of the…
Foster Care UncoveredBreaking News! The 3.4m funding scandal they can’t spin
Breaking News! The 3.4m funding scandal they can’t spin This week, Sarah and Louise get into the breaking news the fostering sector really needs to talk about…
Foster Care UncoveredAre you a ‘Difficult’ Carer?
Are you a ‘Difficult’ Carer? - Speak Up for Children. Get Labelled. Get Targeted. This week Sarah and Louise are talking about ‘difficult’ foster carers, the…
Foster Care UncoveredYou're “Just” a Foster Carer
You're “Just” a Foster Carer & Revolving Door Failed Leadership; They Move Around. So Does the Damage. You’re “JUST” a foster carer. A word that tells you an…
Foster Care UncoveredBig Brother or Accountability? CCTV, Body Cams
Big Brother or Accountability? CCTV, Body Cams and Someone’s Back on the Naughty Step This week, Sarah and Louise are back with the cynicism dial turned all…
Foster Care UncoveredThe Rules Don’t Apply to Everyone
The Rules Don’t Apply to Everyone: Unchecked Power – Part 2 This week on Foster Care Uncovered, Sarah and Louise go from the supposedly boring world of new…
Foster Care UncoveredDo Social Workers Have Too Much Power?
Do Social Workers Have Too Much Power? What Unchecked Power Does to Ordinary People. This week Sarah and Louise ask a difficult but important question: what…
Foster Care UncoveredWho’s Been on the Blinis? Politics, PR and Exploitation
While the Westminster set enjoy salmon blinis, caviar and £100 bottles of Pol Roger, the people holding children’s social care together are exhausted…
Foster Care UncoveredThe Exploitation of Foster Carers
The Exploitation of Foster Carers: How Has It Become Normalised? This week, Sarah and Louise begin by unpacking the latest fostering news, including the…
Foster Care UncoveredProfits, Power, and a System in Crisis
This week, Sarah and Louise examine the unprecedented warning from Scotland's senior social work leaders, who’ve exposed that children are being taken home by…
Foster Care UncoveredTales from the kitchen table
Sarah and Louise take their irreverent look and roll back the curtains on another week in fostering. They start with leadership, language, and the familiar gap…
Foster Care UncoveredFoster Care Uncovered in conversation with John Pearce OBE
This week, Sarah and Louise are joined by John Pearce OBE for a wide-ranging and deeply reflective conversation about the state of children’s social care and…
Foster Care UncoveredWhen Systems Shape Minds: The Psychology Undermining Confidence and Care
This week, Sarah and Louise open with a candid, slightly irreverent look at what’s been making waves in the sector, the stories behind the headlines, the…
Foster Care UncoveredThem and Us: Foster Care's Unspoken Civil War
This week, Sarah and Louise take on one of foster care's biggest elephants in the room: "Them and Us". For years, carers have spoken about a growing divide…
Foster Care UncoveredCulture Wars: Power, Silence and Moral Decline
This week on Foster Care Uncovered, Sarah and Louise tackle the growing culture crisis inside fostering. From Josh MacAlister’s latest social media backlash…
Foster Care UncoveredFoster Care Fortnight: Illusion, Delusion and Confusion
In this episode of Foster Care Uncovered, Louise and Sarah return with their now-notorious mix of news, commentary and uncomfortable honesty as they take on…
Foster Care UncoveredIn Conversation with Rebekah Pierre: Recruitment ads, marginalisation and the illegal Homes Scandal
This week, Sarah and Louise are joined by Rebekah Pierre, Deputy Director of Article 39, care-experienced author, social worker, and one of the most important…
Foster Care UncoveredWho Cares About Foster Carers?
In this episode, Sarah and Louise return after half term with a frank conversation about what’s really happening in fostering today. They start with powerful…
Foster Care UncoveredThe Truth Gets Harder: Foster Carer’s Mental Health Part 2
This week, Sarah and Louise continue the conversation on foster carers' mental health, and go even deeper into what’s really happening behind the scenes. In…
Foster Care UncoveredHidden in Plain Sight: Foster Carer’s Mental Health
In this episode, Sarah and Louise start up a crucial conversation - the mental health of foster carers. Behind the role is constant emotional labour, exposure…
Foster Care UncoveredSupport or Surveillance? The System Failing Those Who Care
In this episode of Foster Care Uncovered, Sarah and Louise pull back the curtain on what foster carers really experience, and why the system’s promises of…
Foster Care UncoveredAllegations, Fear, and Broken Systems: The Dark Side of Fostering
This week, Sarah and Louise tackle one of the most hidden crises in fostering, allegations against foster carers. For decades, foster carers have quietly…
Foster Care UncoveredDon’t Talk About the Money: Power, Pay, Politics and Chaos
This week, Sarah and Louise take an unflinching, slightly bemused, slightly furious wander through the week’s news before getting into the topic everyone…
Foster Care UncoveredFrom Policy Spin to Cupcake Propaganda: Just Another Week in Fostering
This week, Sarah and Louise go full investigative mode on a brutal few days for foster carers, and the uncomfortable truths that slipped out of power. After…
Foster Care UncoveredPolitical Theatre, Gaslighting and Permanent Damage
This week, Sarah and Louise don’t soften a single edge. They dismantle the government’s latest fostering “reforms” piece by piece, not the press release…
Foster Care UncoveredAllegations: The Hidden Truth
This week, Sarah and Louise kick off a hard-hitting series on allegations against foster carers. We unpack why these claims aren’t just a carer problem…
Foster Care UncoveredRetention, Retention, Retention – When Will They Ever Learn
This week, Sarah and Louise pull no punches. They’re calling out the foster care sector’s obsession with shiny recruitment schemes while ignoring the real…
Foster Care UncoveredIllegal, Unsafe, Unacceptable: A Care System in Freefall, Still Not Listening
In this episode of Foster Care Uncovered, Sarah and Louise delve into the shocking new report from the Children’s Commissioner, which reveals the harsh reality…
Foster Care UncoveredThe Good, the Bad, and the Absurd in 2025 and What 2026 Needs
Sarah and Louise take an unapologetically unfiltered look at foster care in 2025, the achievements, the bloopers, the ‘persons’ of the year, what needed to…
Foster Care UncoveredAll I Want for Christmas Is… Actual Support!
A Foster Care Uncovered Christmas Special Festive hats on, rose-tinted myths off. In this Christmas special, we take a tongue-in-cheek but honest look at…
Foster Care UncoveredWhen Policy Meets the Street: A Social Worker Lifts the Lid
In this episode, Sarah and Louise sit down with social worker Nana Abbey-Hagen, a practitioner who moves fluently between frontline reality, leadership…
Foster Care UncoveredThe Form F, one of fostering’s most entrenched processes and why it desperately needs a rethink.
In this episode, Sarah and Louise roll right back to the start and take a deep dive into the Form F assessment, what it was meant to be, why it’s drifting so…
Foster Care UncoveredIndefensible unforgivable
Indefensible unforgivable. Sarah & Louise take apart today’s Government fostering stats - exposing the spin behind the headlines and the failings despite…
Foster Care UncoveredForces shaping the world that we all work in, who really designs the reforms in social work and children's services?
Welcome to the second episode of Foster Care Uncovered. Today, Louise Allen & Sarah Anderson are joined by Dr Joe Hanley, a social worker, lecturer, researcher…
Foster Care UncoveredFoster Care Uncovered
Hosted by Louise Allen & Sarah Anderson This podcast offers an unfiltered and straightforward exploration of the stories and headlines surrounding foster care…