Blogs
A blog from our chief executive, Kevin Williams.
It’s Children’s Mental Health Week. I know that holding special weeks to shine a spotlight on a particular issue is really important – indeed, at The Fostering Network we organise and deliver Foster Care Fortnight! – but I hope we all agree that the mental health of children is such a vital issue we must not allow the focus on it to dissipate after this week.
Jacqueline Heaney - Senior Supervising Social Worker at Integrated Fostering Service.
In her first blog Jacqueline talks about how she became a supervising social worker including her time in care and job as a DJ.
Welcome to the latest blog from the policy team at The Fostering Network.
Last year we were instrumental in persuading the Education Committee in England to implement a fostering inquiry. We prepared our own detailed responses to feed into the inquiry, our chief executive and director of operations gave oral evidence, and we facilitated foster carers to respond as individuals as well. In this way we are confident that the committee got a good picture of the current fostering landscape in England.
After all the evidence from many organisations and individuals had been digested, the committee published their report into the inquiry just before Christmas.
Foster carers inhabit a strange world. It is one where black and white don’t exist in isolation but bleed into one another.
Kirk Hawksworth is a senior supervising social worker for TACT (The Adolescent and Children’s Trust) and has been delivering Fostering Changes training in recent years as part of the Confidence in Care Consortium. He is the lead facilitator for the trust under this initiative and also has an active caseload of foster carers.
There are times in life when all of us need a bit of support. Step Up Step Down is an innovative pilot programme of support care, funded by the Big Lottery’s Reaching Out, Supporting Families initiative, which The Fostering Network delivers in partnership with the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust in Northern Ireland.
In this blog, Jade Irwin - programme officer for Step Up Step Down (pictured below with other staff and volunteers) - tells us more about the impact of the programme.
Leah shares her story of foster care, being separated from siblings and how her foster carers have supported her.
For many, Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year, with countless celebrations, decorations, good food and, of course, presents! It is easy to forget that for some fostered children Christmas is an unknown entity and often an overwhelming experience; for many others it will be a confusing time, missing their birth family or having tricky times of and for others it’s a wondrous time where they truly feel part of a family.
Sometimes I think I struggle to feel satisfied. When it comes to issues relating to fostering I always want things to be better. That’s what motivates me in my role at The Fostering Network. Occasionally, however, it’s good to take time to celebrate a success. That’s what I’ll be doing (at least for a couple of days) over Christmas as I reflect on the fact that, thanks to a campaign that The Fostering Network has led, fostered children in England who are aged three or four will be able to access the additional 15 hours free childcare that so many of their peers are already able to make use of.
