Most people never look up how many children are in care where they live. There is no reason to, until someone you know starts fostering, or a thought you have had for years will not go away.
This post sets out the local picture plainly. It covers how many children are in care in Essex, which children wait longest for a foster home, why staying in the county matters to them, and what that means for anyone who lives here and is quietly wondering about fostering.
How Many Children in Care in Essex
Essex is covered by three separate councils for children’s services: Essex County Council, Southend-on-Sea City Council and Thurrock Council. Each one counts its own children in care. The figures below come from the Department for Education’s children looked after in England statistics, and show the position at 31 March 2025.
Children in care at 31 March 2025
| Area | Children in care | Rate per 10,000 children | Living with foster carers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Essex County Council | 1,141 | 35 | 757 (66%) |
| Southend-on-Sea | 316 | 80 | 216 (68%) |
| Thurrock | 276 | 60 | 202 (73%) |
| England | 81,770 | 67 | 54,820 (67%) |
Taken together, that is 1,733 children in care in Essex, Southend and Thurrock, and 1,175 of them were living with foster carers.
The same statistics record the main reason each child needed care. Across the three areas, the most common reason by a long way was abuse or neglect, recorded for 1,276 of the 1,733 children, around three in four. Other reasons include a family in acute stress, parental illness or disability, and absent parenting.
The rates are worth reading carefully. The Essex County Council area has fewer children in care for its size than the England average. Southend has more. Neither figure is a measure of how well children are doing. It simply shows how many children, out of every 10,000 living in each area, the council was looking after on that date.
Nationally, the number of homes available has been falling. Ofsted’s Fostering in England 2024 to 2025 report counted 42,190 fostering households in England at 31 March 2025, 7% fewer than in 2021.
Who Waits Longest for a Home
When people picture a child in foster care, they often picture a young child. The local figures tell a different story.
Of the 1,733 children in care in Essex, Southend and Thurrock at 31 March 2025, 1,156 were aged 10 or over. That is two in every three. 652 were aged 10 to 15, and 504 were 16 or 17. Fewer than one in five were under five.
Many of those teenagers will not simply leave care at 18. The Fostering Network notes that in England, young people can stay with their former foster carers up to the age of 21. For a 15 year old coming into care, a foster home can be the base they grow into adulthood from.
The Fostering Network’s guide to who needs fostering says that finding foster carers for teenagers is a key priority for many fostering services. It also names the other groups services often need carers for: brothers and sisters who want to stay together, young parents and their babies, children with learning difficulties and disabilities, and unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.
Many people assume teenagers will be too difficult, or that they only have room for one child. For some, that is true. For others, it is an assumption worth testing.
Why Staying in Essex Matters
Coming into care means a child has already lost a great deal. Staying local means they do not also have to lose their school, their friends, their GP, their football club and easy contact with the people who matter to them.
The DfE figures show how often that is not possible. At 31 March 2025, 362 of the 1,141 children looked after by Essex County Council were living more than 20 miles from home. That is almost one in three, compared with just over one in five across England. In Southend, the figure was 24%, and in Thurrock it was 21%.
For Southend and Thurrock, which are small areas, living outside the council’s boundary can still mean living nearby, so distance is the fairer measure. Twenty miles can mean a new school, a long journey to family time and a fresh start the child did not choose.
More foster homes in the county means more children in care in Essex can stay close to what they know.
Where in the County
Children in care in Essex come from every part of the county, and so do the people who foster them. A few examples:
- Chelmsford: the county town, in the centre of Essex.
- Colchester: a city in the north east of the county.
- Southend: on the estuary, with its own council for children’s services.
- Basildon: in the south, between Southend and Thurrock.
- Harlow: in the west, a short drive from our base.
- Braintree: in mid Essex, north of Chelmsford.
Apex is based at Thornwood, near Epping, and supports foster carers across the county. You can see all the areas we cover on our page showing where you can foster with Apex.
What a Local Agency Means in Practice
Being local is not a slogan. In practice it means your supervising social worker knows the area, the schools and the services. It means support groups and training you can actually get to. And it means other carers nearby who understand what your week looks like.
It also shapes how children and carers are matched. Jo describes her approach in how Apex matches children and carers: “We share everything we know. The referral, the behaviours, the contact arrangements, school plans, all of it.” Carers at Apex are never pushed into saying yes. In Jo’s words, “you can say no. As many times as you need.”
If you want the practical detail on who can foster here, what the assessment involves and what support you get, our page on fostering in Essex covers it.
Next Steps
If you want to understand more without talking to anyone yet, come to one of our free webinars. You can watch, listen and leave. There is no obligation.
Book a place on our free webinar and hear from our team about what fostering in your part of the county looks like.
Author Bio
Written by Sali Walker
Founder and Business Manager at Apex Fostering.
Sali is care experienced and has been a foster carer. They saw first-hand how often placements and support can fall short, and set up Apex Fostering to do things differently, with better support for carers and children at the centre of every decision.
