News

The Fostering Network is delighted to endorse the Initial Family and Friends Care Assessment: A Good Practice Guide which is launched today. The guide, which was developed by Family Rights Group in partnership with an expert working group, of which The Fostering Network was a member, aims to provide social workers with a clear framework for undertaking preliminary assessments of family and friends (commonly known as viability assessments).

The UK’s fostering system is under ‘unsustainable strain’ and is being held together by the goodwill and commitment of thousands of dedicated foster carers, leading fostering charity The Fostering Network is warning today (Tuesday 31 January 2017). This risks undoing the hard-won improvements in raising the aspirations and achievements of fostered children, undermining the terms, conditions and recruitment of foster carers, and increasing long-term societal and financial costs.

As the world’s eyes turn to Washington DC, The Fostering Network is proud to announce the appointment of its own new president here in the UK.

The new appointee is foster carer Libby Thornhill, who takes over the mantle from our current president Jim Bond. Darren Harman-Page will be joining Libby as vice president.

The improving educational achievements of young people in foster care were celebrated this week at an event in Stormont. The celebration was to mark the tenth birthday of Fostering Achievement, a unique scheme which offers practical support to foster families to help fostered children and young people achieve their potential and improve educational outcomes.

Following the speech today by Prime Minster Theresa May regarding mental health services, Kevin Williams, Chief Executive of The Fostering Network, said: ‘We welcome a focus on mental health services, especially the review of children and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS), as we regularly hear from foster carers who tell us that the children they are looking after cannot get the support from CAMHS that they so desperately need.

Following the announcement by the Minister for Childcare and Early Years, Mark McDonald, that The Fostering Network would be one of a number of organisations who would receive funding from the Children, Young People and Families Early Intervention and Adult Learning and Empowering Communities Fund, Sara Lurie, director of The Fostering Network Scotland, said: ‘We are very grateful to have received this core funding from the Scottish Government.

Responding to the publication of Starting Out Right: Early Education and Looked After Children (Family and Childcare Trust and the University of Oxford), Jackie Sanders, director of communications and public affairs at The Fostering Network, said: ‘This timely report has identified some extremely important issues when it comes to looked after children’s early education – not least that looked after children are less likely to access early education than their peers.

Social pedagogy can bring about immediate benefits for fostered children and young people, their foster carers, and the other professionals in the team around them, The Fostering Network’s four year Head, Heart, Hands programme has found.

English/Cymraeg

The Fostering Network, in conjunction with Welsh Government, has launched A Foster Carer’s Guide to Education in Wales.

The guide, which will help foster carers understand better how the education system works in Wales so that they are better equipped to support the children and young people in their care, has been developed to be used alongside Welsh Government’s Raising the Ambitions and Educational Attainment of Children who are Looked After in Wales.

Applications are now open to become an ambassador as part of The Fostering Network’s Fostering Excellence programme in Wales.

The Fostering Network is looking for twelve ambassadors, six care experienced young people and six foster carers, to represent and be the voice of young people in care in Wales and the Welsh foster carer community.