Kashjelle, aged 18, is part of a St Christopher’s foster family in West Bromwich, West Midlands. For Sons and Daughters Month she has shared her experiences of fostering and why she thinks every family should give it a go. How long has your family been fostering for? My mum and dad have been fostering for four years and have looked after the same girl in all that time. She was only three years old when she moved in with us. How did you feel when your parents first spoke to you about fostering? They told me they wanted to foster a couple of years before they started the application process to be approved as carers. My twin sister and I were really happy as we had always wanted a younger sibling but we didn’t really know what to expect. Once you started fostering, was it different to how you imagined? When we first started fostering I was much younger so I didn’t quite understand the significance of what a foster carer does. As I’ve grown up I’ve learnt a lot more. It’s so important to understand the child’s needs. When you know their background and how they came to be in the care system it means you are better prepared to get them to feel comfortable in your home. You can’t go in blind. What has been your favourite thing about being part of a foster family? It has been amazing to see my foster sister grow up. She has learning needs, like speech and developmental delay – she couldn’t speak much when she first moved in with us but now she’s so chatty! It’s rewarding to see we’ve all made a difference to her life. I like playing an active role and doing the fun things with her like taking her out for a treat if she does her reward chart, but I always try to help her with homework too so that she can learn and improve. What would you say to other people whose parents are thinking about fostering? I think all families should try it! I don’t regret it and am so glad we’ve had the opportunity. You get lots of help from the St Christopher’s fostering team, your social worker visits to check how you are getting on and thinks about everyone in the household. At the start of the application before we even became a foster family, they asked me and my sister if we also wanted to do it too not just my parents. It was good they kept checking in and seeing how they could help. Fostering has not only made a difference to the child we are looking after but has built stronger bonds within our family. Before we used to all stay in our bedrooms but now we spend time together in the living room, playing games. My family and I speak together about caring for her, which has made us closer. When I’m older I want to foster so it can have the same positive impact on my own children that it’s had on me. Are you ready to become a foster family? Enquire with St Christopher’s today to request a call back or ring 0800 234 6282 for a chat with our friendly team. Source: www.stchris.org.uk We welcome Ofsted’s latest research on matching in foster care, published today. It finds that good matches are not down to luck and chemistry but are something that can be developed through good practice. Stability for looked after children is vital, this is why matching in foster care is so important. When matches do not work, fostering arrangements breakdown which causes instability for the child and, sometimes, results in the foster carer taking a break from fostering or leaving the workforce altogether. Ofsted’s report also highlights that the most significant challenge in making successful matches for children is the shortage of the right type of foster carers to match the needs of the looked after children population. However, there were several areas of improvement that did not depend on recruiting more foster carers. The report’s findings show that best practice when matching children and foster carers includes:
We are delighted to have been advisory board members for this research project and hope that fostering services across England can incorporate the findings into wider organisational learning. Chief executive of The Fostering Network, Kevin Williams, said: ‘We were pleased to see the importance of confident and empowered foster carers and how this improves the matching process and other aspects of the fostering experience for the child. ‘We also strongly welcome the consideration of maintaining relationships with previous foster carers in the matching process; relationships between children and their previous foster carers are too often overlooked, and more needs to be done to support these relationships.’ Read Ofsted’s full report here. Source: www.thefosteringnetwork.org.uk St Christopher’s Fellowship is “encouraging secure, long-term social networks” for care leavers, according to an evaluation released by the Department for Education. The report on the children’s charity’s Staying Close model, released on Tuesday 3 November by the DfE Innovation Programme, highlights “the pilot’s genuine desire to allow young people to gain autonomy and its ability to actively engage young people in decision making”. The Staying Close model works within four children’s homes in the London Boroughs of Ealing and Hounslow to support young people transitioning from care to independence, with reflective practice facilitated by MAC-UK. Young people co-produce plans for professionals on what they want to support their transition including life skills sessions, trialling move-on accommodation and regular contact with people they care about. The evaluation explores how St Christopher’s meets the four key aims of the pilot, which were relationship management, stable education, employment or training (EET), independent living skills and wellbeing. Authentic relationships between young people and their care workers, which develop how relationships typically would outside of the care system, have been key to the success of the project. “[It’s] human, it’s normal, because at the end of the day, if that was your family, and you progressed and you went on to have children, or study, or whatever… that’s the sort of relationship you would have,” shared one young person in the report. Project partners at Ealing and Hounslow have already implemented policies on expectations and boundaries for relationships based on learning from St Christopher’s Staying Close. Having relationships with people who want them to succeed has given care leavers support to sustain education, training and employment. The report describes this as “invaluable, with one of the young people stating that they would not be able to go to university if they were not part of the Staying Close programme”. Support from a dedicated life skills worker allowed young people to feel confident that they could ask for help when they needed it. “Young people benefiting from the project stated that they ‘felt safer’ as it was as though they had a ‘safety net’ but also still had their independence,” the evaluation found. To improve wellbeing, move-on accommodation and regular, planned contact with children’s home staff allows young people to transition gradually so they can experience independence without feeling isolated. “All of the young people felt that this support was useful, particularly for those with existing mental ill-health issues,” explains the report. The project is now expanding across all St Christopher’s children’s homes and semi-independent accommodation in the UK. Jonathan Whalley, Chief Executive, said: “I am thrilled that St Christopher’s Staying Close is succeeding in maintaining those key supportive relationships for young people as they leave care. Thank you to everyone for their commitment in developing the pilot, especially to the young people for their invaluable wisdom and insight.” Source: www.stchris.org.uk Member News: The Foster Care Co-operative - Could disabled people save the fostering sector?5/11/2020
The Foster Care Co-operative (FCC), has taken part in ground-breaking research committed to removing barriers that could prevent disabled people from becoming foster carers. The National Lottery-funded research, Mutual Benefits: The Potential of Disabled People as Foster Carers, marked the first user-led disability research programme in the world. Gail Granger, one of FCC’s Senior Social workers, lent her experience to the two-year landmark project which was in collaboration with the University of Worcester and Shaping Our Lives (a national network of disabled service users), which concluded that disabled people could contribute to the pool of foster carers, to care and provide homes for vulnerable children. Inaccessible buildings, information systems, support structures and medical assessments were highlighted as the key barriers for people with disabilities. However, training sessions delivered to fostering agency staff as part of the research resulted in a change of attitude and approach – and it is hoped that other organisations within the fostering sector will follow suit. Steve Field, Director of Child Care at The Foster Care Co-operative, said: “From the get-go, as a not-for-profit ‘co-operative’ fostering agency, we adopted an ethical and inclusive approach, from foster carer recruitment right through to staff recruitment. It is important to recognise skills and competences across a diverse population, including people from different ethnic backgrounds, sexual orientations, religions and, as this research has quite rightly pointed out, from people with disabilities. We are very proud of the contribution that Gail has made to this project, and we fully embrace and support any changes required to help encourage more people with disabilities towards fostering”. According to The Fostering Network, one of the UK’s leading fostering charities, an additional 8,600 new foster carers are needed across the UK this year alone, to help make a difference to children’s lives. Source: https://www.fostercarecooperative.co.uk TACT is delighted to announce that it has received a grant of £475,000 from the Big Lottery Fund to continue the TACT Connect service which provides much needed support for our care experienced people across England. TACT believes that parenting does not stop at 18, 21 or 25. We have a lifelong duty of care towards our foster children. TACT Connect is an innovative new scheme that aims to address the high levels of isolation and mental health issues affecting those that have left care, by offering a lifetime support network for those who have been fostered through TACT, promoting and creating opportunities and facilitating peer mentoring. There are currently 150 TACT Connect members and this is constantly growing. TACT Connect Coordinator Verity Lindley said: “Care experienced adults are already vulnerable to social isolation and the pandemic is only making the problem worse. Thanks to this money from the Big Lottery Fund, we can start to build a supportive community with continued access to information, support, opportunities and life-long friendships. It is vital that we do better to ensure care-experienced adults are supported and celebrated.” Though each care leaver has had a unique journey through the care system and beyond, TACT recognises that they are a community with shared experiences, who often face discrimination, disadvantage and specific challenges. In comparison with their peers, care experienced people are more likely to be unemployed or not in education or training, with over a third of 19-year-old olds being in this category (Department of Education 2015). Mental health issues are also prevalent; one in four care experienced people have faced a mental health crisis since leaving care (Barnardo’s 2017). Both isolation and lack of opportunity are issues that have become more urgent due to the pandemic. TACT CEO Andy Elvin said: “It’s important as a parent that you stay in touch with and support your children throughout their lives. The state can be a not so great parent because once people have left care at 18 or 21, it doesn’t know what’s going on in their lives. So, TACT Connect is our way of addressing that and we are very grateful to the Big Lottery Fund for enabling the service to grow”. TACT Connect is driven and shaped by its care-experienced community and six of its members have recently been appointed as special Advisers, tasked with using their experience of the care system to ensure the service meets the needs of other care experienced people. When Jarra, one of the TACT Connect Advisers, left care and her foster family at 18, it was an overwhelming experience, and she suffered bouts of loneliness. Jarra says: “I know how difficult it can be to leave care and your foster family, so I understand the problems that new care leavers often face, and I look forward to sharing with them how I coped. I also want to show them that there is a lot of help out there, especially from TACT Connect, which can give them the chance to meet new people with similar experiences and provide advice and support with things like education, careers, and independent living” TACT Connect Adviser, Iqra, says: “Feelings of isolation are affecting everyone and for care leavers this can be amplified. In my new role as a TACT Connect Advisor, we are all working together to keep everyone connected. I consider this role to be so important. I have been through similar experiences as the young people who are part of the group and I hope this allows them to feel seen, heard and understood.” Source: www.tactcare.org.uk This year young people leaving care and families who have children with additional needs have been put under extra strain. Across the country, there has been a 107% rise in children receiving emergency food. With the additional impact of Covid and a second lockdown, we’re not sure what Christmas will look like for many of the people we support, but we want them to know that they are not alone. "I was taken into care as a newborn baby because my mum had an abusive partner. I was put under special guardianship with family friends for a while. Then I lived with my mum again for seven years, until she passed away and I was taken into foster care. My transition into independence was really smooth thanks to the Together Trust. They helped me to get some furniture for my flat and things like a fridge, freezer and washing machine. I had a really close connection with everyone who works at the charity. After I left care they could have just turned their back on me, but they didn’t." " I know they are still there for me now and that makes a massive difference." *Anthony's name has been changed to protect his identity We're raising money to fill hampers to distribute to families and young people who are living below the poverty line and there are lots of ways you can get involved:
Do you run a business and your company Christmas party been cancelled but you are looking to use the money for a good cause?
Is your community group looking for a local charity to support this Christmas?
Instead of buying Christmas cards this year would you consider donating the money for the cost of one hamper?
You can make a donation today. Or get in touch with our friendly fundraising team if your community group or company would like to get involved with our appeal by emailing fundraising@togethertrust.org.uk Source: www.togethertrust.org.uk |
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