A new recruitment hub has been launched to find urgently needed foster carers across Cumbria and Lancashire.

The Regional Fostering Recruitment and Retention Hub, part of a £1.2 million regional bid involving Blackburn with Darwen Council, Blackpool Council, Cumberland Council, Westmorland and Furness Council and Lancashire County Council, is set to boost foster care recruitment.

Foster With Us serves as a first point of contact for those who may be interested in fostering.

The hub offers a team of fostering advisors available all week, providing the necessary support for each step in the application process.

There is also a buddy scheme providing regular check-ins with existing foster carers and young people throughout the region, and access to a wide range of free training.

Foster With Us aims to put prospective foster carers at the centre of its efforts.

The hub has been created following the Children’s Social Care Implementation Strategy, Stable Homes, Built on Love, a governmental initiative investing £36 million to bolster the number of foster carers nationwide.

The initiative aims to ensure availability of more foster carers, ready to provide the right home, at the right time, to the children in need.

Across the five local authorities there are currently 152 children waiting for foster homes, 19 of whom are sibling groups, which means they are waiting for people to share their homes so that they may remain together.

While there are many foster carers across the country, more are needed to meet the demands of the number of children entering the care system.

Children and young people enter the foster care system due to a range of issues such as neglect, abuse, or family problems.

For others it may be because their parents have a short-term illness, mental health issues, learning difficulties, or problems with drug or alcohol misuse.

Finding suitable homes that can cater to individual needs is made more likely in a diverse pool of foster carers from different backgrounds.

To attract and keep more carers, Foster With Us has introduced the Mockingbird model.

This will bring together up to ten satellite foster families, forming a constellation.

At the heart of each constellation is a hub home with a specially recruited and trained foster carer providing support for all carers within it.

The model aims to nurture relationships between children, young people, and foster families.

The constellation community will offer peer support, guidance, social activities and sleepovers to strengthen relationships and permanence.

Foster With Us is supported by the Department for Education and has been shaped by children who have had foster care experiences.

Councillor Sue Sanderson, cabinet member for Children's Services, Education and Skills at Westmorland and Furness Council, said: "We urgently need to recruit more foster carers for children across Cumbria and the new regional recruitment hub, Foster With Us, will help us to address the recruitment challenges our councils are currently facing.

“At Westmorland and Furness Council we welcome people from all walks of life and all backgrounds into the fostering community, to make sure every child in foster care finds the right placement."

Cllr Emma Williamson, executive member for Children and Family Wellbeing at Cumberland Council, said: “In Cumberland providing safe and loving homes for our cared for children is one of our most important priorities.

“There are more than 700 children and young people across Cumbria who are in the care of their local council.

"A shortage of foster carers mean that some of our most vulnerable children live out of the county and away from their school, friends and family and everything familiar to them."

To find out more or to speak to one of the Foster With Us team, visit fosterwithus.org.uk or call 0300 019 0200.