With Sovereign's support, Partnerships in Children’s Services (PiCS) grew to become a family of fostering agencies with a common determination to give looked-after children a better future. At the end of the investment period PiCS had developed its high-quality services, expanded its geographic reach and was the UK's third largest fostering services provider.
The founders of Fosterplus, both social workers, created an agency to operate with the best principles of fostering services. Sixteen years on, Fosterplus had grown into a nationwide provider. Keen to expand the agency, they looked for an outside investor that could take Fosterplus to the next stage of growth while respecting the organisation’s ethos and values.
Paul Snell said: “We were excited about the opportunity for Fosterplus to become a nationwide, premium, end-to-end provider of childcare services with Sovereign’s support. But while we were ambitious for the company, we were not prepared to throw aside everything that we'd created at Fosterplus. An external investor had to have a plan for growing the business that retained our ethos and values – the set-up had to be right for both of us and our staff. Sovereign listened to us and understood where we were coming from. Anyone can crunch numbers – you need people who understand the softer issues."
Sovereign invested in the agency to develop it further. Paul stepped back from the day-to-day running of Fosterplus whilst staying on as a non-executive director.
