Active Care Solutions
Oldbury · Independent Fostering AgencyRegional
Ofsted: OutstandingActive Care Solutions is an Ofsted-registered fostering service based at Oldbury.
What sets Active Care Solutions apart
Active Care Solutions (ACS) is a Sandwell-based independent fostering agency that has been rated Outstanding by Ofsted three inspections in a row — most recently in March 2024 with no requirements or recommendations.
ACS specialises in matching children to carers who reflect their culture, faith and heritage — including a strong track record with unaccompanied asylum-seeking young people. The agency is part of the wider Polaris Community group but is run as a small, tightly-led local team out of Oldbury.
www.activecaresolutions.co.uk75
Approved fostering households
94
Children and young people supported
3x
Consecutive Ofsted Outstanding ratings
Support at a glance
A dedicated supervising social worker with prioritised one-to-one time with both you and the children in your care.
Round-the-clock support line so you always have an experienced practitioner to talk to.
Tailored pathways for foster carers and social workers, sitting alongside refreshed mandatory training.
Detailed individual risk assessments, seven-minute safeguarding briefings, and workshops on county lines, exploitation and knife crime.
An annual awards event celebrates every child — including birth children — for achievements big and small.
Specialist matching for children of multiple faiths and unaccompanied asylum-seeking young people.
Children help review the children's guide and even sit on recruitment panels for new carers.
Essential life skills workshops (CV writing, interviews) and Staying Put arrangements beyond 18.
Types of fostering offered
ACS offers short-term, long-term, respite, emergency, parent-and-child, sibling groups and therapeutic placements. The agency is particularly known for placing unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and for supporting carers to apply for Special Guardianship Orders and adoption where this is in the child's best interests.
Allowances & career progression
From £450/week per child. ACS operates a skill tiered payment structure so carers earn more as they build experience and take on more complex placements. Contact the agency for current rates.
What Ofsted say
All three areas were judged Outstanding: children's experiences and progress, how well they are helped and protected, and the effectiveness of leaders and managers. Inspectors made no requirements or recommendations.
The inspection praised the registered manager's hands-on leadership, an embedded culture of learning, participation in DfE-funded research programmes, and the agency's exceptional support for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.
Ofsted inspection quotes
"Children make exceptional progress from their starting points, because of the nurturing and warm care they receive from their foster carers. They form safe and secure attachments with their carers and are embraced as part of their foster families."
"The progress of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children is exceptional from their starting points. For example, an unaccompanied asylum-seeking child, who at the outset did not speak English, is now sitting their GCSEs."
"Foster carers have provided overwhelmingly positive feedback about the support they receive from the agency. One foster carer said that the support provided was 'excellent' with another describing the agency as 'like being part of a family'."
"The voice of the child is embedded within the agency. Children are part of the young volunteers group and have been involved in reviewing and developing the children's guide as well as contributing to the recruitment process for new foster carers."
"There are robust safeguarding practices throughout the fostering service. Children have individual risk assessments that are clear and concise. They are regularly reviewed and provide foster carers with relevant information to support children to keep safe and feel safe."