MORE foster children are being given homes in Essex thanks to a funding boost to a care group.

The Essex-based Brighter Futures Foster Care has increased the number of new foster households by 19 and the number of child placements in their care by nearly a quarter, from 67 to 83 thanks to a £120k funding injection from peer-to-peer lending platform RateSetter.

The care company works with local authorities in the South East to find appropriate foster families for young people, helping to address a national shortage of foster places, which nears 10,000.

With the help of the additional finance, founders Justina Gay and Sali Ann Walker are hoping to raise the number of placements to 110-120 by approaching more local authorities within reach from the company’s base.

Justina said: “The pressure is always on to provide more foster homes. We earned a ‘good’ rating from Ofsted last year and we want to protect that status by growing carefully, rather than making a dash for growth and risk dropping our standards. We currently have six people in the fostering pipeline, which exceeds our original target by some margin.”