Foster care is intended to keep children safe when their families cannot, and the safety provided by foster care relies heavily upon the quality of those who are managing it. Social workers are at the heart of the foster care system. They assess risk, arrange placements, support caregivers, and plan for each child’s future. Their work influences the physical environment in which a child lives as well as the sense of stability, trust, and belonging that a child in care has. Child welfare services in the United Kingdom and other Western countries face chronic workforce instability (MacLochlainn et al., 2026b), so it is important to understand what social workers bring and what is lost when they leave. This essay explores social workers’ role in foster care, considering relationship continuity and placement stability, facilitation of long-term relationships and transition planning, and the implications for child protection when the social work workforce is unstable.
Relationship Continuity and Placement Stability
In foster care, the social worker is meant to be the constant adult who links children, birth families, and caregivers. Foster carers see how much children rely on that consistency: they notice more anxiety, dysregulation, and mistrust when a worker is absent or no worker is allocated (MacLochlainn et al., 2026b). A scoping review of 11 studies from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, published over four decades, found that social worker turnover in child protection contributes to placement disruption, delays in permanency, and emotional distress for children, families, and carers (MacLochlainn et al., 2026a). The review also found that repeated relational losses, such as moves, case handovers, and broken attachments, exacerbate the trauma that is already experienced by many children and families (MacLochlainn et al., 2026a). Organizational factors, such as team culture, workload, and supervision, can either lessen or worsen these harms (MacLochlainn et al., 2026a). The review also found that little research has looked at the impact of turnover from the service recipient’s point of view. Its authors conclude that retaining social workers is a cornerstone of ethical, relational, and effective practice (MacLochlainn et al., 2026a). These results suggest that placement stability and permanency are associated not only with the placement itself but also with the continuity of the relationship with the social worker.
Facilitating Enduring Relationships and Transition Planning
In addition to helping to maintain placements, social workers help young people build relationships that will support them once they have left care. In a longitudinal study of 608 young people in California foster care, 48% had an enduring relationship, that is, someone they could turn to for support at both age 17 and age 21, and the rate was particularly low for Black and Native American or Alaska Native youth (Okpych et al., 2023). Most of these enduring relationships were with family members and peers who offered several kinds of support. Having such a relationship reduced the risks of food insecurity, economic hardship, and homelessness in early adulthood (Okpych et al., 2023). Interviews with 19 child welfare workers and other professionals in the United States who worked with young people leaving foster care produced three themes (Wang & LaBrenz, 2025). Participants emphasized the importance of long-term relationships with extended family, foster parents, and peers and noted that professionals cannot stay with a young person throughout their time in the system. They also noted that young people lose many services and much of their professional support once they turn 18 and that caseworker turnover interrupts services (Wang & LaBrenz, 2025). Reconnecting with families of origin did not always go as young people hoped. Professionals also described how supportive adults, such as foster parents and social workers, helped young people keep their therapy appointments and take their medications (Wang & LaBrenz, 2025). Together, these findings position social workers as agents of relational permanence: they prepare young people for adulthood by connecting them with lasting sources of support.
Workforce Instability as a Safeguarding Concern
Research based on service users’ experiences reframes workforce stability as a question of child safety. A qualitative study that drew on interviews with eight care leavers, six foster carers, and four parents and on focus groups with advocacy staff concluded that turnover is a safeguarding concern rather than a single workforce issue (MacLochlainn et al., 2026b). Participants described how turnover fractured trust, delayed decisions, interrupted life-story work, and shifted risk onto families and voluntary organizations (MacLochlainn et al., 2026b). Thus, the stability of the social work workforce has an impact on how protected and supported children feel.
Consistency
When social workers stay, children, families and carers feel safe, understood and supported.
“The social workers should probably be the one consistent thing in their life.” — Supported-living worker
Access and fairness
When the worker changes, decisions change too, so support depends on who holds the case more than on what a child needs.
“It felt like the rules changed depending on who you got.” — Parent
Relationships and trust
Each new worker means retelling a painful history; repeated changes wear trust away, while a stable relationship allows healing.
“After a while you just stop saying everything, because what’s the point if they’re not going to stay?” — Parent
Endings and system gaps
Workers leave without warning or handover, and cases left without a worker push the work onto carers and voluntary staff.
“I didn’t even know she was leaving. She just wasn’t there anymore, and then there was somebody new.” — Care leaver
Records and communication
Records go missing or contain errors and news comes late; careful handovers keep a child’s story together.
“Every time somebody leaves, there’s a chunk of knowledge that goes with them.” — Foster carer
Safety and thresholds
Overstretched teams raise the bar for help, so support arrives at crisis point instead of early.
“I was reaching out for help and nobody came.” — Care leaver
Diagram by Writers Per Hour, adapted from Table 1 and the quotations in MacLochlainn et al. (2026b), published under a CC BY 4.0 licence. Participants are named by their role only.
Conclusion
Social workers in foster care do much more than casework. They create the relational continuity that contributes to placement stability and permanency and foster the enduring connections that help protect youth in adulthood. The studies examined here link social workers’ departures to placement disruption, delayed permanency, and distress for children and families. Service users themselves also regard turnover as a safeguarding issue. Effective foster care therefore depends on hearing the voices of children, parents, and caregivers, managing workloads, providing supportive supervision, planning handovers when workers change, and making retention a priority. Strengthening the social work role protects the safety, stability, and belonging that children gain through relationships. Future research should keep its focus on service users’ experiences, and policy should follow suit.
