Transforming children’s social care is central to our mission to break down the barriers to opportunity. It is fundamental to ensuring that every child grows up safe, supported and able to thrive. Today, we are publishing the Enduring Relationships Strategy, which sets a clear direction for children’s social care in England by placing relationships at the heart of the system’s purpose.

This publication builds upon our recent work to legislate for social care reform, reset how the system operates, and give our partners clarity on delivery. Enduring Relationships establishes a guiding principle, bringing coherence to reforms by placing relationships at the heart of the system. The Independent Review of Children’s Social Care called for a relentless focus on family networks, reunification, and other forms of permanence that promote lifelong relationships to support the best outcomes for care experienced children that endure into adulthood.

The evidence is clear, a single stable, trusted and loving relationship can transform a child’s life, improving resilience, health, education and their long-term outcomes. There are professionals across the sector working tirelessly to support children to build and sustain trusted relationships. However, this is too often dependent on individual commitment rather than reliable structures. Children can experience multiple moves, separation from family and community, and too often leave care without the networks of support that most young people rely on. The Enduring Relationships Strategy addresses this directly. At its heart is a simple but fundamental idea. The purpose of the children’s social care system must be to build, protect and sustain children’s enduring relationships, so they can feel safe, supported and able to thrive.

To enable this, our reforms are aligned to four key outcomes and supporting enduring relationships is the golden thread that runs between them.

First: focusing practice on enduring relationships

Relationships should not be treated as an add-on, but as the core purpose of practice and the lens through which all professional judgement is exercised. This is reflected in the Families First Partnership Programme, where mandatory family group decision-making will ensure that children’s families and wider networks are involved in decisions about their care at an earlier stage. In addition, the Government has strengthened local authorities’ duties to promote sibling contact for children in care.

At every stage of decision-making, the system should consider not only whether a child is safe, but also who matters to that child and how those relationships can be enabled and sustained.

Second: creating homes for enduring relationships

All children should have a home that meets their need for love and support. Homes for children in care are not simply placements; they are where relationships are formed, sustained and strengthened. The system must create the conditions for those relationships to flourish, rather than contributing to their breakdown.

The majority of children should be supported in family-based homes. The Government is investing £88 million to reform fostering and recruit 10,000 new foster carers, working with fostering hubs and the sector as set out earlier this year in the Fostering Action Plan. Kinship care is also being strengthened, with every local authority required to publish a local kinship offer, supported by £126 million to pilot seven Kinship Zones, including Family Network Support Packages to help families step in and care for children within their networks.

Residential care should be used for far fewer children and only where it best meets their needs, with a focus on maintaining and restoring family connections. To address gaps in provision, the Government is rolling out Regional Care Cooperatives to improve planning and commissioning. In addition, I have commissioned Emmanuel Akpan Inwang to review professional development for staff in children’s homes, ensuring the workforce can better support children to build and sustain meaningful relationships.

Third: supporting the transition to adulthood through relationships

Young people leaving care should be supported to move into adulthood with strong, lasting relationships in place. Too many leave care without the network of connections that most young people rely on as they begin adult life, and this must change. The Government is strengthening support for care‑experienced young people so they can move towards interdependent living, underpinned by trusted and enduring relationships.

Programmes such as Staying Put and Staying Close are ensuring continuity of care and connection beyond the point of leaving care, while strengthened corporate parenting expectations mean that public services play a more active and consistent role in supporting care leavers.

Recognising that many children in care have already lost important relationships, a national rollout of Family Finding will be taken forward across all local authorities, with the aim of helping children identify and reconnect with the people who matter most in their lives.

Fourth: embedding relationships through accountability and inspection

The importance of children’s long-term relationships must be embedded through accountability and inspection. Care should not be judged by placement numbers or types, but by children’s experiences and the strength of the relationships they are able to build. To support this, the Government will introduce an Enduring Relationships measure to gauge improvement and provide accountability, alongside working with Ofsted to ensure inspection frameworks reflect this priority.

We will take forward this work in close partnership with local authorities and the wider sector. Local authorities will be engaged as learning partners, reflecting their central role in leading practice and driving improvement. We will work closely with [Coventry, Dorset, North Yorkshire and York] local authorities, with the aim of publishing a best practice guide next spring.

This is a call to action for practitioners and leaders working with children in and leaving care to ensure every child leaves with a network of enduring relationships. We ask the sector to strengthen how services support these relationships, engage in sharing what works, and act now by building on existing knowledge and good practice.

The publication of the Enduring Relationships Strategy marks an important step in establishing a clear and consistent purpose for children’s social care. Every young person should be able to rely on children’s social care to meet more than their material needs. They should have a community of people who know them well and the confidence that someone will always be there for them. We cannot accept a system that does not provide this for our most vulnerable children. That is why these reforms are designed to support children’s futures beyond their time in care, ensuring they have the love, stability and opportunity they need to thrive.

A copy of the Enduring Relationships Strategy will be deposited in the Libraries of both Houses.

https://www.theyworkforyou.com/wms/?id=2026-06-04.hcws89.0