Spring Campaigning

Thank you to everybody who took part: we had over 700 responses, which was fantastic. It was shocking to read some of your stories, and the information provided painted a stark picture, but it was invaluable – both for our response to the Inquiry, but also for a standalone report we have produced. Cuts: the view from foster carers has now been published on our website and we are already using it in our campaigns work to push for improvements to foster care. It has been sent to all MPs and relevant ministers. The reply that we received from Edward Timpson, the Children’s Minister in England, stated that he appreciated the concerns of foster carers but that the Government had invested millions of pounds to improve foster care recently.

We are continuing our research into the implementation of Staying Put across England, and we would like to gain insight as to how well Staying Put is being implemented – what is working well and what needs to improve. We were instrumental in campaigning for this new law to come into force, and are keen to ensure that it is implemented as successfully as possible. So if you are a foster carer in England who has young people living with them who are likely to be eligible to stay put with them, or has had a young person who was eligible for a Staying Put arrangement, please take five minutes to respond to our survey. Everyone who fills in the survey will be given the chance to enter into a free prize draw to win one prize of £50 of Marks and Spencer’s vouchers.

We have now updated our sample foster carers charter. We would be delighted to hear from any foster carers or fostering services that are in the process of introducing or updating their charter. Look out for an article on charters in Foster Care magazine soon! Please get in touch with us at campaigns@fostering.net on this or indeed any other part of our campaigns work.