When Ofsted examined Coventry's children's services in March 2026, inspectors found that no child in our care was living in unregistered provision.
I am proud of that and of our outstanding outcome, but it has not been easy. Every council is under immense pressure to find a home for a child who needs to be safeguarded and who has often experienced significant trauma.
In Coventry, holding this position is the result of intensive work by a dedicated home-finding team, social workers, carers, commissioners and partners across the city. We are relentless in our searches, keeping children at the heart of what we do, even if this takes us late into the night.
Our conversations about where a child will live begin with some core questions. Who matters to the child, what has worked before and who could care for them with the right support?
The Association of Directors of Children's Services (ADCS) publication, What is Care For? 2026, describes the purpose of care as safe, loving and stable homes with enduring relationships. Our Practice Principles reflect the same and remind us that bringing a child into care is one of the most significant decisions we ever make in a family's life.
That thinking sits at the heart of Coventry Family Valued, our relational and strengths-based approach and of our Families First Partnership work.
We now run seven council children's homes, with two more for children with complex needs awaiting registration. A home for disabled children is planned. Our same-day short stay home means a child who needs care that night comes into a registered setting, with staff who have time to understand them, protect their school place and connections and, where it is right, keep brothers and sisters together.
Family solutions come first. Our kinship fostering has grown by 42%, so more children grow up within family networks. Our commitment to reunification has helped more than 55 children return safely to their families.
Weekly sufficiency meetings bring people together to support children before a home reaches breaking point and specialist fostering is helping children move from residential care into foster homes.
We have been intentional about sufficiency and opened new children's homes. Our 2023 to 2027 sufficiency strategy was clear about the gaps: same-day emergency care and local homes for children with complex needs.
We now run seven council children's homes, with two more for children with complex needs awaiting registration. A home for disabled children is planned. Our same-day short stay home means a child who needs care that night comes into a registered setting, with staff who have time to understand them, protect their school place and connections and, where it is right, keep brothers and sisters together.
Emergency foster carers support a rota for children who come into care in a crisis outside office hours. For older young people, supported accommodation and the House Project offer registered homes and the chance to work towards independence and a tenancy.
Corporate parenting has been a whole-council and regional collaboration. Coventry leads the West Midlands Commissioning Hub and regional fostering and residential frameworks because we all know that children do not live neatly within local authority boundaries.
None of this means the problem is solved. As ADCS has said, councils are finding homes for children in a market that too often puts profit before care. I support its calls for more not-for-profit and locally-led provision, faster registration and a rebalanced market. Councils should not carry sole responsibility for market failures they cannot control.
I want to be honest with colleagues, Ofsted and government. We do not want any Coventry child living in unregistered provision and we will keep working hard to prevent it. But if the market does not change, that will get harder for us, as it will for every council. Staffing and the growing complexity of children's needs add to the pressure and building fostering, kinship care and residential capacity cannot be rushed.
So what would I say to colleagues? The children most at risk of ending up in an unregistered setting are our most complex. We usually know about their needs before the crisis arrives and that is our chance to get ahead of it. For us that has meant practice, sufficiency and finance leaders sitting round the same table, investing early in family, in the specialist homes the local market will not provide and being open with elected members about the risk we still carry.
What children ask of us is not complicated. They want people who stay, a place that feels like home and someone who will not give up on them. We owe them that.
Sukriti Sen CBE is director of children's and education services, Coventry City Council and ADCS board director
