dolescence. Practical and financial support and access to appropriate therapeutic provision for children were all seen to be required to further enable family and friends to step up and care for children in the range of kinship care arrangements. 5.3 Residential care The number of children placed in registered children’s homes has continued to rise across the SP9 data period (Figure 21). Time and again, DCSs interviewees explained how lack of foster placements and IFAs’ reluctance to accept children and young people with more complex needs were driving up the use of residential placements. Ofsted research found that two-fifths of children placed in a children’s home were there because of a foster placement breakdown (Ofsted, 2022), the largest group of whom were aged 14 to 15 years old. While data from the Nationwide Association of Fostering Providers (NAFP) showed the numbers of children moving out of residential care homes into fostering placements rising between 2019 and 2022, these mainly involved children who had been placed temporarily in a children’s home due to a shortage of appropriate foster placements and those who had responded well to therapeutic interventions (NAFP, 2023). While the number of mainstream children’s homes in England has grown by 44% over the past four years, the number of available placements only increased by 28% over the same period, reflecting the fact that many homes are designed to accommodate only one or two 64 children (Ofsted, 2024c).11 Between 2019–20 and 2022–23 the average cost of a residential placement increased by 20% (IFS, 2024a). Figure 21: Number of children in care in children’s homes subject to Children’s Homes (England) Regulations 2015 (K2) on 31 March Source: SP9 respondents. England number is extrapolated from 123 loca