Blogs
We’ve had an excellent start to our access to free childcare campaign. Since launching it last week with a letter printed in the Guardian signed by 12 other organisations, we have had an unprecedented response from people lending their support to the cause. It really is scandalous how fostered children in England have been so explicitly excluded from the extra 15 hours of free childcare, but we’re determined to reverse this decision!
Foster carers help transform children’s lives. Many of these children will have experienced extremely traumatic starts to life and many will have been ill-treated. Caring for children who have experienced such trauma can bring significant challenges to foster carers who have to strike a difficult balance between keeping fostered children (and themselves and their families) safe and allowing their fostered children to experience a full family life and as normal a childhood as possible.
Angela has been a foster carer for five years. She and her husband, Simon, specialise in looking after sibling groups aged four upwards. Here she shares some tips which have helped her when welcoming a new foster child into her home.
The nights are drawing in but we never stop campaigning to improve foster care! Welcome to the latest campaigns blog.
The Fostering Network is a member of the Northern Ireland Anti-Bullying Forum.
The Anti-Bullying Week 2017 theme this year is "All Equal, All Different, and All Together". It aims to support schools and youth organisations to celebrate difference and diversity; bring children and young people together to celebrate what makes them and others unique; and help create welcoming and inclusive environments both off and online for children and young people.
As part of Anti Bullying Week, The Fostering Network is raising awareness among foster and kinship foster carers on how they can support the children they are looking after, if they are affected by bullying incidents or behaviour.
[This blog by our chief executive, Kevin Williams, first appeared on Huffington Post.] One of the biggest changes in working with looked after children over the 30 or so years that I have been working within the sector is the recognition that we must take their mental health as seriously as their physical health. This is a hugely welcome change and one that I have personally been very passionate about. That's why, when I was asked to sit on the Department for Education's expert working group with a focus on looked after children and mental health and wellbeing in England, I jumped at the chance.
My children were nine and seven when we started fostering. Like anyone who decides to foster, I was worried about the impact our decision might have on our family but particularly on my children.
