‘They want to give our children to white people and Christian people’: Somali perspectives on the shortage of Somali substitute carers

Abstract

Children from some black and minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds are routinely placed with substitute carers who do not match their cultural, linguistic, religious and ethnic backgrounds. The shortage of foster carers and adopters of specific backgrounds means that the demand in the care population often outweighs the availability of matched placement options. While the shortages of BME foster carers and adopters are widely recognised, there is virtually no research into the barriers faced by specific BME groups, so there are no informed recruitment strategies to increase the pool of potential matches. This research focuses on Somalis living in a large English city where there is a significant shortage of Somali foster carers and adopters despite people of Somali heritage comprising a sizeable proportion of the care and city population. Findings from the study suggest that there is no lack of motivation among the Somali population to foster or adopt, but participants felt that potential applicants are either rejected or deterred by institutional barriers, social exclusion and negative perceptions of social care, and that these factors are closely interlinked. The study makes practical suggestions for recruitment and assessment practice, but also stresses the importance of cultural competence and community engagement in a wider context of social care if welfare agencies wish to see more disenfranchised communities volunteering to work with them.

Keywords

Fostering adoption Somali minority ethnic BME BAME barriers to recruitment engagement anti-oppressive practice ethnicity Islam culture

Introduction

Matching looked after children with carers who best suit their needs is an ongoing challenge for local authorities and independent agencies. When choosing an appropriate match for a child, a range of factors is generally taken into account, such as contact arrangements, sibling groups and continuity in education; it is also considered best practice, where possible, to match a child to a similar ethnic or religious group. The shortage of foster carers and adopters from certain minority groups in relation to the make-up of the care population is not a new phenomenon (Selwyn, et al., 2010) and the recruitment of carers from many black and minority ethnic (BME) groups continues to prove difficult.

In her practice guide to recruiting black and minority ethnic foster carers, Gwen Rule (2006) asserted that it is easy to assume that the over-representation of certain BME groups in the foster child population is due to a shortage of BME carers wanting to foster or adopt, whereas the reality is that many want to, only to find themselves obstructed by circumstance.

This article seeks to explore this issue in relation to one particular BME group by investigating the barriers and motivations to foster and/or adopt among the Somali population in one English city.¹ Although detailed statistics on ethnicity of the care population are not available in sufficient detail to establish the exact scarcity of matched placements, the shortage is widely acknowledged by agency professionals, especially as there was only one approved Somali foster carer in the city in question at the time of the research. The study was conducted to gain insights that would help professionals to close the gap by informing targeted recruitment strategies, so meeting Ridley and Wainwright’s (2010) demand that local authorities should have plans in place to recruit a foster care workforce that reflects their care population.

Research into shortages of minority ethnic carers

Experiences of discrimination faced by BME families involved in the social care system have been explored at length, with early studies by Ahmed and colleagues charting the failures and insensitivities of services when working with BME communities (Ahmed, Cheetham and Small, 1986). Subsequent research into race and social care has continued over four decades and yet these issues persist. It is, therefore, no surprise that the looked after population reflects the communities that endure these inadequacies in social care. Concerns raised include systemic racism in social work processes, inadequate preventive work with BME families, less effort to return black children to their birth families as compared to white children, and BME (particularly African-Caribbean) children being more likely than their white counterparts to become looked after within two weeks of a referral to children’s services. Also noted is ambivalence among social workers in relation to ethnic matching (Barn, 1993; Barn, Sinclair and Ferdinand, 1997) despite its well-established benefits and ratification in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989 (UN General Assembly, 1989) and Children Act 1989.

Barn and Kirton’s (2012) review of the evidence on transracial placements concluded that the widely held belief that delays in placing BME children are due to unrealistic searches for ideal placements was untrue (p. 28). They suggest that the core issues are the ‘shortage of minority ethnic adopters, its extent and causes’ (p. 33) and argue that prevailing notions of transracial adoption as a ‘one-glove-fits-all’ strategy are not only misguided but prevent the development of other possible solutions (p. 35). A preferable remedy would be the targeted recruitment of carers from the backgrounds that match the care population and for which there is a need – hence the necessity to investigate the barriers to enlisting carers from specific BME backgrounds.

Given this dearth of evidence, this article discusses both fostering and adoption recruitment. This is pertinent as a review by Scott and Duncan (2013) investigated general barriers, triggers and motivations to foster and/or adopt and found little difference between them. In addition, a study by Sunmonu (2000), which included both black Caribbean and black African respondents, found a slight preference for fostering over adoption but when the data were disaggregated, African respondents had a much more distinct preference for fostering compared with those with Caribbean heritage. Therefore, I have included both as I do not yet know whether views on them will be similar or distinct.

Socio-economic factors, which disproportionately impact some BME groups, have also been found to create significant barriers to recruitment. These include poverty and poor housing, having larger families, sharing bedrooms and potential language difficulties (Rule, 2006; Selwyn, Frazer and Fitzgerald, 2004; Sunmonu, 2000). Cultural and/or religious factors affecting motivation include caring for children from an extended network being part of cultural norms (Massiah, 2005; Rule, 2006; Sunmonu, 2000) and concern among Muslim families as to whether adoption is contrary to Islamic teaching (Cheruvallil-Contractor, et al., 2018). Other identified barriers to recruiting BME foster carers are negative views on the assessment process, such as a fear of intrusiveness (Sunmonu, 2000), the power of word of mouth in tightly knit communities when knowing someone who had a previous negative experience (Selwyn, Frazer and Fitzgerald, 2004; Sunmonu, 2000), anticipation of a negative response (Wallis, 2006) and not meeting Eurocentric criteria/benchmarks (Massiah, 2005; Ridley and Wainwright, 2010; Selwyn, et al., 2010). A further obstacle highlighted by BME prospective carers stems from a general mistrust of social services and social workers (Massiah, 2005; Rule, 2006; Sunmonu, 2000), based on experiences of negative or unhelpful responses to enquiries (Wallis, 2006), a lack of both culturally sensitive practice and BME staff and an absence of targeted recruitment strategies (Ridley and Wainwright, 2010). However, while many studies report these findings, none of them have focused on a specific ethnic group, despite several calls for research that ‘disaggregates’ BME communities.

This persisting gap in knowledge holds back the ability to effectively recruit substitute carers from many BME groups. Richards and Ince (2000) found that fewer than 40% of the local authorities they studied had targeted recruitment approaches for BME foster carers, despite their care population having children from those communities who needed matched placements. Worse still was the lack of knowledge about the barriers faced by specific communities, making it even more difficult to take services forward. A research overview by Chand and Thoburn (2006: 368) concluded that ‘even when data are provided on ethnicity, different minority ethnic groups are often combined for purposes of analysis, making it difficult to tease out complex differences between ethnic groups’.

This article seeks to meet these deficiencies by exploring what members of the Somali community perceive to be the reasons for the shortage of Somali foster carers and adopters. It discusses their general perceptions of what they feel to be the barriers and charts the changes they think would achieve greater numbers of approved Somali carers.

Methods

This qualitative study was undertaken in 2018. The sample comprised a group of 18 women of Somali heritage living in one English city. Women were chosen because they were more likely to be managing the household and childcare (Rask, Warsame and Borell, 2014) and because women are also most often the registered main caregiver for children in care. A gradual, verbal and relationship-building model was used to collect the information.

Initially, relationships were made with organisations that support either exclusively or significant numbers of Somalis in the city and rapport was built with key gatekeepers to these organisations. They promoted the research, distributed flyers and invitation letters and advised that word-of-mouth and verbal communication would be the most effective means of recruitment. Through this networking, contact was made with those who led regular groups for Somali women and invitations for me to attend and explain the research were forthcoming. Several women brought friends along and encouraged them to participate. Being introduced by trusted individuals helped to overcome wariness of social care.

Data were collected from focus group discussions and individual interviews. The focus groups were run alongside the women’s regular weekly group sessions. There were four focus groups with three to six participants, each lasting for up to two hours. Three of the women were interviewed individually because they were either not members of the groups or wanted to talk privately.

Ethical approval was obtained from the relevant university and individuals were informed of the purpose of the study, and what information would be shared and which details would remain confidential. Recordings and transcripts were stored on the university’s secure server and deleted on completion. Several participants said they felt more relaxed speaking to the researcher openly knowing that she was not white English and could ‘understand the culture’.

Most of the participants were cautious about providing any specific biographical information aside from their name and their Somali heritage due to suspicion of social work agencies, so these details had to be collected informally. The 18 women taking part comprised a mix of age groups, education level, occupation and length of time spent living in the UK. Their ages ranged from 27 to mid-60s and most had experienced their schooling in Somalia, arriving in the UK in adulthood. Most of the women were based at home, raising families, but some younger participants, who had spent most of their lives and been educated in the UK, were employed in professional positions – interestingly all within some form of care or school setting. The majority of participants reported knowing someone Somali who had applied to foster, and a couple had applied themselves, but no one knew of any who had been successful. None of the women knew anyone who had formally adopted. Interestingly, those who had been living in England for most of their lives and those who worked with children were less critical of social care than participants who had spent less time in the UK or faced greater language and cultural barriers.

Thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006) was used to identify trends from the data. The recordings were listened to before being transcribed and then read to note similarities. A list of codes was compiled and categorised into headings and relevant quotations selected. The four main themes to emerge from the analysis were attitudes to fostering and adoption, overcrowding, social exclusion and mistrust of social care. Fostering and adoption were discussed interchangeably by participants, many of whom had not been aware of the differences prior to the interviews.

Theme 1: Attitudes to fostering and adoption

Cultural and religious factors

Culture presented as a strong motivation to want to foster and/or adopt. Every participant was positive about both options; they felt it was part of their culture to look after extended family, neighbours and/or friends’ children, so the concept of caring for a child from outside of the immediate family was commonly accepted. Typical statements echoed this one comment:

Somali people, they all want to foster. They ALL want to foster […] Like in Somali culture, it’s very easy that you are looked after by your aunt or by your grandmum or by anybody. It’s really very normal in our culture.

Many believed they would be rewarded in the afterlife as Muslims, particularly as the Prophet (peace be upon him)² was an orphan. The main divergence between their views on adoption and views on fostering was religious: two of the 18 participants said they were unclear about whether adoption was permitted within Islamic teachings, such as rules around modesty, claiming another child as your own, inheritance and children keeping their father’s name. Most had not considered this before but when it was raised, several women became apprehensive and this led to further discussions and requests for clarification. Two individuals said they would adopt regardless of Islamic rules, but these were the exceptions. Another difference between views on adoption and fostering was that women expressed a preference to be able to return a child home, and did not want to feel that they contributed to a child being withheld from his or her birth family indefinitely. This was strongly connected to the feeling (discussed later) that many Somali children were being removed wrongfully from their parents.

Interestingly, one of the main motivations for becoming a substitute carer was due to their views on ethnic/religious matching: the desire to care for a Somali child who might otherwise be placed in an ‘English/Christian’ family. The reasons given were occasionally concerned with preserving language and culture, but primarily stemmed from feeling a religious duty to uphold the child’s Islamic upbringing and religious education. Many participants told of Somali children they reported to know who were placed in non-Somali, non-Muslim foster homes and being upset by this. It contributed to the mistrust of social workers and reluctance to work with them. One woman stated:

… the biggest worry [about Somali-Muslim children fostered by English families] is their child will change their religion or their child is brought up a different culture. Or they might start to move more and more away from their culture, religion and community […] That child may actually not know where they come from.

Participants would use the phrase ‘our children’ and felt a collective duty to Muslim children, but more specifically to Somali ones. ‘Somali’ and ‘Muslim’ were used interchangeably as was English/white/Christian. Views on both fostering and adoption were overall very positive, with strong motivation to do so but for the other barriers outlined below.

Theme 2: ‘Overcrowding’

Space

All participants referred to cultural norms of large families, alongside insufficient accommodation, as one of the primary explanations for the shortage of Somali substitute carers. They specifically used the term ‘overcrowding’, including those with limited English. It later emerged that this was not a barrier to their willingness to foster or adopt, but one imposed upon them as they would foster if they were allowed to. This was also attributed to what was described as a cultural norm, that several children sharing a bedroom or having people come and stay for lengths of time was usual and did not feel crowded to them. Participants reported knowing Somalis who had been rejected because they did not have a spare room and this knowledge was a deterrent to applying.

Spare room requirement

Everyone had heard of the ‘spare room requirement’ before the interview and it appeared that it already had been a topic of discussion and contention. By this they meant the expectation that to be approved as a foster carer, you must already have a spare room for the sole use of the looked after child. Some participants said that they felt this standard was unfair to Somalis as it would automatically exclude a large proportion of them. They also felt that it was unjustified if they wanted to care for a Somali child, as it was likely that the child would have grown up sharing a bedroom. There was also the perception that local councils were unhelpful in finding solutions and instead would reject Somali families based on the space available. As one participant expressed:

That’s another reason why Somali people don’t like social services. Because it’s easy for them to solve all these problems, but they’d [rather] give the child somewhere else [to non-Somalis]. If they [a Somali family] are offering that they want the child, but the house is overcrowded, why not offer something else?

Again, many felt that the lack of space was not a barrier to Somalis but an institutional barrier imposed upon everyone, which would disadvantage Somalis in particular.

Theme 3: Social exclusion

Most participants explained that Somalis were one of the more recent immigrant groups to the UK and faced practical barriers accordingly. Alongside cultural norms of having large families, they argued that they had not accumulated enough financial capital, education and employment to buy their own larger homes. Language difficulties were also mentioned, with a couple of participants reporting that they knew individual Somalis who had been rejected on the basis of their English skills.

Many also said a reason for the dearth of Somali substitute carers was because they were unsure how systems such as social work and fostering and adoption work. Aside from unfamiliarity with the system, many explained that having a formal structure for social care was an entirely foreign concept, especially having someone come to the home to do regular check-ups and assessments. In the words of one participant:

In the society that we came from, it’s Islamic way. I have seen a neighbour of mine back home who just take a kid from right in front of the mosque’s door […] She took it and had to make some kind of announcement around her family.

Women expressed confusion about the law, rights and the roles of different professionals, which contributed to the fear of social workers. It made them reluctant to volunteer, as this would allow professionals to have access to their lives and create fear about the consequences of this type of surveillance.

Theme 4: Mistrust of social care

Mistrust of social workers was one of the most strongly emphasised explanations offered by participants as to why Somali people might be deterred from fostering or adoption.

As described above, the circumstances of having moved to the UK in more recent decades meant that participants felt they were not accustomed to UK systems, processes and laws in relation to child rearing. This view was compounded by a belief that social workers were too quick to remove Somali children from their parents’ care without taking this into account and were given inadequate support. There was a fear that if they gave outsiders access to their lives, they might be wrongfully accused of abusing their own children and have them taken away. In the words of one participant:

If they [Somalis] work with them [social workers] and they come to your home, maybe they will take your kids as well. I want to keep my home – my kids – my secret. I think they [social workers] are mad, they’re crazy. I want to keep them [my children] safe because anything they [social workers] could say is abuse.

Prejudice/discrimination

Although the fear of social workers was attributed in part to not knowing which elements of their parenting might be considered abuse in a foreign system, some participants were also afraid of them because they felt that Somali families received harsher treatment than their English counterparts for equivalent or worse parenting. Many gave accounts of Somali parents they knew, or knew of, being accused of harming their child and not given a chance to explain, resulting in the child’s removal based upon a misunderstanding. This participant stated:

I hear they [social care] target Muslim kids and I believe as well. […] Because I see lots of English kids – they live in a horrible situation and they got bad mum and dad and no one even touch [takes] these kids. And even beat their kids inside the school and no one says anything.

Those who did not feel this way had worked in settings in partnership with social care and/or had been educated in the UK.

Lack of respect or consideration for their culture

Closely linked to a belief that social workers displayed prejudice and discrimination towards them was the feeling that professionals lacked adequate understanding of different cultures. Examples included Somali phrases which could be taken out of context if translated literally; for example, ‘waan ku dilaaya’ translates literally as ‘I will kill you’ but is used to mean ‘I will punish you’. They thought that the prejudice and lack of understanding among social workers led to harsh treatment and unnecessary alarm that could be avoided with more experience and understanding of Somali culture. Participants suggested improving the education and training of social workers and did not feel there was enough effort from social care to learn or even engage with their community. This contributed to their view that a genuine interest in recruiting Somalis as foster carers or adopters was lacking.

Furthermore, many of the women reported knowing Somali families who had had children removed and placed in non-Muslim households, adding to the view that social services do not have their interests at heart or respect the value of their religion and culture. This participant stated:

Here the children going [into care] is a big thing because they place Somali children with white people and really Somali people, they hate that. […] They worry about the children losing their religion, they might eat pork, they live in a house with dogs, they won’t pray. […] Because the time they lose the children, they [social services] want to give to white people and Christian people, and they [children] probably lose the religion […] They [social workers] are few people [existing] who respect [our] faith.

Word of mouth

When enquiring why these negative beliefs about social workers prevail, almost every participant mentioned word of mouth. Most reported hearing negative stories about someone they personally knew or had heard about. They explained that communication within the Somali ‘network’ or ‘community’ is rapid and influential, and that stories of Somali families anywhere in the UK would spread:

It’s faster than the internet you know. If one person has a bad experience with the social services, which is possible, it will spread very quick. […] If something bad happens to any Somali family in the country, every Somali person will know about that. Believe it or not. Everyone. Facebook. WhatsApp. Everything.

All but three participants felt these depictions of social care to be confirmed by their own observations. These three believed that the stories they heard were not necessarily accurate and gave an exaggeratedly negative impression of social work practice. As one participant expressed it:

I can imagine people saying, ‘One minute we were fine and the next minute the social worker came and took my child.’ People not knowing the background and why those kids were taken away. I think a lot of it is to do with that reputation and people exaggerating stories.

Again, the less negative perceptions of social services were shared by participants who had lived here the longest, had been born in the UK and/or had professional experience with social services, for instance through working in education or health and social care settings.

Discussion

This study has sought to explain why there is a shortage of Somali foster carers and adopters and to suggest changes to practice that could alleviate barriers to recruitment. Commonalities with other BME groups will be discussed but comparisons are hampered by the tendency for studies to view BME children and families as a homogenous group.

Views on fostering and adoption: cultural, religious and personal

Participants were unsure of the difference between fostering and adoption and used these terms interchangeably, without expressing any distinct preference for one over the other. Some preferred the idea of fostering owing to a feeling that Somali children were being wrongfully removed from their parents’ care and that adoption would unnecessarily withhold the child from their birth family. Sunmonu’s (2000) study of factors deterring black British adopters found that fostering was sometimes preferred over adoption because carers were paid; however, none of the Somali respondents in this study mentioned remuneration in their discussions of motivations and barriers.

When exploring barriers to fostering and adoption, religious and cultural factors were not brought up; if anything, they were viewed as encouraging their willingness to offer placements because of the cultural norm of caring for children outside of the immediate family, a feature noted in Sunmonu’s (2000) research. However, a new finding was the willingness to foster or adopt out of a duty to ‘look after their own’ and the discomfort in relation to children from their own ethnic group being in transreligious/transracial placements. Participants also referred to their own large families, implying that the prospect of accommodating an additional child was not daunting. Many used phrases such as ‘If I can look after five [children], why not six? What’s the difference?’. Ironically, the norm of having large families that serves as a motivation to take in more children was also perceived as a barrier to approval owing to the spare room requirement. It is important to note that the perceived hierarchy of needs of a child differs culturally. For example, guiding a Muslim child’s religious upbringing was more important than he or she having their own bedroom, which they viewed as an English standard. Any regulation that applies a blanket practice, policy or rule upon everyone and disproportionately disadvantages specific groups or individuals is considered ‘indirect discrimination’ under the Equality Act 2010 (section 19) and in the light of this evidence should be re-examined.

Although religion was not raised as a barrier to fostering and adoption by most participants, some sought clarification about what religious teachings permitted, specifically about adoption. Despite there being little academic research in this area at the time of this study, these barriers were not new or unknown within Muslim communities and in 2018 the Penny Appeal charity issued guidance on good Islamic practice for adoption and fostering covering the same issues. In the same year, a study by Cheruvallil-Contractor and colleagues for CoramBAAF included interviews with Muslim prospective adopters and foster carers (as well as social workers) that revealed similar concerns. It is therefore safe to say that these religious concerns do not only apply to Somali Muslim communities but are relevant to other Muslim communities too.

Social care undervaluing cultural and religious matches

Given participants’ strong views on religious and ethnic matching, it is not surprising that the practice of placing Somali Muslim children in transracial or transreligious placements reinforced the feeling that local authorities neglected their views. Indeed, Pitcher and Jaffar (2018), in their study of Muslim children in care, found a serious mismatch of cultural expectations; for example, children were given food containing pork or alcohol, or witnessed members of the opposite sex dressed in a way that was inappropriate for a Muslim child.

In 1989, the Children Act introduced section 22(5)(c), referred to as the ‘Ethnicity Clause’, which requires that ‘religious persuasion, racial origin and cultural and linguistic background’ be given due consideration when matching child and carer, and guidance and standards emphasised the need to achieve concordance as closely as possible. However, in 2010 the UK government decided that due to delays in placing BME children, transracial placements should be allowed, so avoiding the need to address wider issues, such as the over-representation of BME children in care and reasons for the shortage of BME carers. Thereafter, the ethnicity clause was repealed and guidance focused more on foster carers needing to help develop the child’s identity.

This decision generated a heated debate. Kirton (2016) argued that the government’s stance on ethnic matching versus transracial placements was contradictory and, in 2018, a government advisor, Sir Martin Narey, published a detailed report on foster care in England which made no mention of the shortage of BME foster carers, implying that it was not a high priority (Narey and Owers, 2018). The removal of the ethnicity clause has arguably eliminated the pressure to promote more ethnic and religious matches and reflects an indifference to the potential value of these prospective carers. Moreover, the failure to record even basic ethnic and religious data shows a lack of recognition and political will to address the matching issue. The lack of data on ethnicity was highlighted by Barn and colleagues (1997) more than two decades ago and evidence from this study suggests that little has changed.

Perceptions of social care as discriminatory

Mistrust of social care was raised by participants as the greatest deterrent to applying to foster and adopt, along with a fear that their own children might be removed. Although this has been documented by other researchers with BME groups, they were not for the same reasons identified in this study. Massiah (2005) and Sunmonu (2000) found that black British would-be adopters were suspicious of statutory bodies due to oppression, racism and insensitivity. In this study of Somalis, the problem was less about having a long history of negative experiences with official agencies and more about their lack of experience and unfamiliarity with the role and practice style of welfare services, reflecting the fact that most Somalis have only recently settled in the UK. As one woman put it, it was safer not to ‘rock the boat’ when they were living peacefully without inviting interference. These fears that their cultural norms of child rearing and discipline were misunderstood echo the findings of Barn and colleagues (1997) more than 20 years ago. A marked element from the present study is how much the readiness to foster or adopt is linked to their perception of discriminatory safeguarding practices towards Somali families.

In exploring the sources of information, participants highlighted the way in which word-of-mouth communication fuels the mistrust of social care. This echoes the findings of Sunmonu (2000), Rashid (2000) and Selwyn, Frazer and Fitzgerald (2004) that some BME groups are more likely to consult other members of their community before applying to foster or adopt, and how often they were deterred when hearing about others’ negative experiences. Wallis (2006) and Selwyn and colleagues highlighted that some BME communities are more susceptible than others to negative responses and bad experiences, and how this ‘reverberates throughout the community’ (Selwyn, Frazer and Fitzgerald, 2004: 63).

Another notable concern for participants was a perception that social care professionals do not genuinely respect or value them, their culture or religion, and that this deters many from wanting to foster or adopt. The workforce is seen as predominantly white English with insufficient training, sensitivity and experience with, or understanding of, Somalis and other BME groups – and especially important, little interest in wanting to change in this respect. The Department for Education (2013) found that ethnic minorities are under-represented within the workforce in this region (and most regions outside London). They saw a lack of genuine commitment to increasing the number of Somali carers. Almost all participants claimed to know a Somali who had applied or enquired, but few knew anyone who had been successful. A decade ago, Wallis (2006) and Ridley and Wainwright (2010) found that very few BME enquirers made it through to the assessment stage and the perceptions of those involved in this study were that this has not changed, at least for Somali people.

In summary, this study reveals that several factors combine to deter or obstruct Somali people from applying to foster or adopt. High on the list is institutional indifference to ethnic and cultural matching. This is reflected in Jiva’s (2015) Freedom of Information requests to 164 local authorities, which showed how many of them were not recording the faith or ethnicity of applicants or existing foster carers. Participants consequently felt there was a perceived lack of effort to match ethnically/religiously and an alleged bias against Somali applicants, all contributing to ill-feelings about social care.

This was not necessarily separate to the feeling of being treated more harshly than their white counterparts in the application or assessment process for fostering, and also in safeguarding cases. The lack of flexibility and perceived readiness to reject Somali applicants further negatively impacts perceptions of social services as being unhelpful, not protecting their interests and being unsupportive.

Implications for practice

A range of practical, relational and institutional barriers were identified in the interviews and focus groups, some of which have been raised in research with other BME communities and some of which are new. Although this is a small qualitative study and generalisations must be tentative, there are several implications for policy and practice.

Firstly, local authorities should have plans in place to recruit foster carers who reflect their local population of children in care. In this instance, recruitment methods are needed specifically for Somali foster carers. Participants who considered applying reported being persuaded most by seeing marketing material that highlighted Somali children in need of care. Their other suggestions include using case studies of Somali children, using Somali media channels, targeted recruitment events within the community, using social media and making use of word-of-mouth. These women said they would find it helpful to meet existing foster carers from their community as they would value hearing their experiences before deciding to apply. They also suggested that agencies provide training to trusted community leaders who could be ‘ambassadors’ to be approached informally with initial questions. The guidance on Islam and adoption produced by Penny Appeal (2018) could be used to answer questions applicants might have. This material could usefully be distributed and discussed with religious and community leaders who could then act as intermediaries.

A second implication for practice is to reconsider how agencies respond to enquiries. As seen above, negative responses have a powerful ripple effect on the wider community and influence the likelihood of more people coming forward. Enquiries to foster or adopt from Somali individuals, on the basis of this evidence, need to be handled with particular sensitivity by responding positively and promptly, with unsuccessful applications managed sympathetically and clearly, including suggestions for the future. This tailored response also requires adequate record-keeping in the initial stages, so that on receipt of an enquiry, professionals can establish early on whether this individual is from a background where there is a particular shortage. Their application can then be handled with particular consideration.

A third implication would be to reconsider how assessment criteria are applied in the initial recruitment and enquiry stages, if they are acting as direct barriers to making matches. The participants felt that the spare room requirement meant that the majority of Somali families would be automatically ruled out as ‘overcrowded’. Their cultural norm of having larger families, alongside socio-economic factors such as lower income and living in council housing, quickly disqualifies them. They also argued that, paradoxically, living in social housing means they cannot apply for additional space before applying to foster or adopt but cannot be approved without a spare bedroom. To break this cycle, they suggested that Somali applicants should be assessed without a spare bedroom, with the option of applying for a larger property if approved. A further suggestion was for local authorities and agencies to seek beforehand the child’s view of sharing a room to see whether they minded, especially as this was likely to be the expectation for a Somali child.

Despite the ‘spare room’ requirement being a common belief, the legislation, regulations or guidance do not explicitly state that there must be a spare room for a child, despite many local authorities and independent fostering agencies listing it as a requirement. There is no clear consensus and each local authority has different requirements. The Fostering Services National Minimum Standards advise that a child should have their own bedroom where possible but state (Department for Education, 2011: 22):

In the foster home, each child over the age of three should have their own bedroom. If this is not possible, the sharing of a bedroom is agreed by each child’s responsible authority and each child has their own area within the bedroom.

If Somali families are to be genuinely encouraged to foster and adopt, the ‘spare room requirement’ needs to be re-examined as it appears that each child having their own bedroom is an English cultural priority.

Equally worrying is the gap highlighted in this study between the worthy welfare intentions enshrined in law and the realities of practice. Section 22G of the Children Act (1989) was expanded on by section 9 of the Children and Young Persons Act 2008 and the guidance by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF, 2010) and is referred to as ‘the sufficiency duty’. This places a duty on local authorities to secure sufficient placements to meet the welfare needs of the children they look after, as far as it is reasonably practicable to do so, and that it should not be deemed as not ‘reasonably practicable’ if difficult or lacking resources, etc. (pp. 12–13). The 2015 Care Planning Guidance includes ‘health, disability, education, religious persuasion, racial origin, cultural and linguistic background’ of the child as the needs of the children in their care (Department for Education, 2015: 27). Therefore, local authorities have a duty to make meaningful efforts to recruit ethnic and religious matches for their care population, even where difficult, and should have targeted approaches. But for the Somali women in this study, these ambitions remain something of an illusion.

Finally, the evidence from this study suggests that the relationship between members of the Somali community and social care as a whole, needs to improve if voluntary engagement in fostering and adoption is to increase. An important message is that participants’ experiences and perceptions of social care were not ‘anti-oppressive’ but in fact quite the opposite. Perceptions of harsh treatment from services, sensing a lack of genuine commitment to recruiting Somali carers and a lack of effort to place Somali children with carers of the same backgrounds/religions contributed to participants feeling hesitant to volunteer to work with children’s services. These perceptions were stronger barriers to recruiting Somali substitute carers than reasons related to individual preference, or to cultural or religious practices.

Social workers in the UK aim to adhere to the BASW Code of Ethics (2014) which includes the responsibility to recognise and respect the diversity of the societies in which they practise (including community differences), challenge social conditions that contribute to social exclusion and confront unjust policies and practices. Aside from the recruitment processes, these Somali participants held a general perception that their cultural and religious practices and values were not appreciated or respected by social workers, and that this contributed to the mistrust and reluctance to work with them. Official guidance states that foster carers should be ‘informed, trained and confident about dealing with issues relating to gender, religion, ethnic origin, cultural background, linguistic background, nationality, disability or sexual orientation’ (Department for Education, 2011: 21). In addition, Fosterline (n.d.) has produced guidance on caring for Muslim children so there is no lack of resources for social workers and foster carers to use. Indeed, these echo many recommendations of this research, namely to consult Somali community organisations, community members and religious/community leaders, to inform the practice of carers of Somali/Muslim children and to instil more confidence that the needs of their families and views of the community are valued.

Conclusion

This study builds on 30 years of research that highlights the marginalisation of BME families within social care in the UK. This is manifest in the patchy recruitment of ethnically matched substitute carers and the over-representation of BME children in care. There is still a noticeable lack of research into barriers to recruiting substitute carers from specific minority ethnic groups, despite it being noted as important. Thus, there is a need for more granular research on barriers for ‘BME communities’, rather than inappropriately combined groups whose only similarity is marginalisation. What applies to one group does not necessarily apply to another. It would be valuable for local authorities to conduct research on the specific communities who are under-represented within the carer population, in order to implement targeted recruitment approaches within the communities with whom they need to engage.

This study also focused specifically on the enquiry/application stage of the recruitment process and it would be useful for future research to identify at which point in this process (and on which criteria) applicants from different communities are being rejected, and how this compares across various ethnic groups. This would reveal any trends that are discriminatory.

Participants in this study shared their perceptions on why there is a shortage of Somali foster carers and adopters. These included institutional hurdles, socio-economic barriers, social exclusion and negative perceptions of social services. These issues need to be understood in the wider context of how indirect discrimination takes place and should not be seen as mutually exclusive. The application of one-size-fits-all assessment criteria is likely to maintain disproportionately low numbers of applications from prospective Somali foster carers and adopters, thus failing to fulfil the duty to provide enough placements that respect ethnic, religious and cultural heritage. Part of the solution is having more detailed knowledge to inform targeted recruitment strategies and having culturally sensitive assessments and enquiry responses for Somali and other BME applicants – strategies that uphold the fundamental social work values of anti-oppressive practice.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Camelia Chowdhury is a Social Worker for looked after children in the London Borough of Camden. The research for this article was carried out for a Masters dissertation.

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