Leading fostering charity The Fostering Network is calling for more under 35s to consider becoming foster carers.
The call comes during the second week of Foster Care Fortnight, as part of the charity’s campaign to help recruit 7,000 new foster families across the UK in the coming year.
Less than five per cent of foster carers are under 35, despite this age group making up about 20 per cent of the UK’s population.
A couple from Annalong described as ‘loving, kind, amazing and special people’ by their foster children, have been named Foster Carers of the Year in Northern Ireland.
William and Valerie Newell, were nominated by their two foster children, who say any child would be lucky to live with them.
They were given the accolade from The Fostering Network at Northern Ireland’s 2017 Foster Carer of the Year Awards, on Saturday 13 May at the Hilton Hotel, Belfast.
More than 7,000 new foster families are needed in the coming year to ensure that all children can be found the right foster home first time, according to leading fostering charity The Fostering Network at the start of this year’s Foster Care Fortnight (8-21 May). The need is particularly for families to offer homes to teenagers and groups of brothers and sisters.
The Fostering Network is delighted to have been successful in securing further funding for the next phase of the pioneering Mockingbird programme.
An additional £3.76m has been allocated from the Department for Education’s Children’s Social Care Innovation Programme to work with new partners as well as testing additional innovations to the model.
An innovative project to encourage and support more Muslims to become foster carers was launched last night (Monday 13 March) at a charity gala dinner.
The event raised funds for the new Muslim Fostering Project and was hosted by the Better Community Business Network (BCBN), a Muslim-led organisation that identifies and supports worthwhile community projects. The Muslim Fostering Project will be established and run by the UK’s leading fostering charity, The Fostering Network, and the prominent community development charity, Mercy Mission UK.
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.
More than 50 children and young people in care were commended for aiming high as they joined the Belfast HSC Trust fostering service and The Fostering Network Northern Ireland at the annual Fostering Achievement Awards in Belfast at the weekend.
It is the sixth year that the awards have been held in recognition of academic, musical, sporting and social achievements of children and young people who are in foster care.
The Fostering Network is delighted to have been chosen as Sainsbury’s Local Charity of the Year by the Blackfriars Road branch of Sainsbury’s Local.
Tony Round, head of fundraising at The Fostering Network, said: “This is a fantastic opportunity for The Fostering Network to partner with our local Sainsbury’s store. It shows the impact that our charity makes the community surrounding our London office and we hope that the people of Southwark will continue to support us over the next year.”
Education Minister, Peter Weir, has today visited a Fostering Achievement Primary Summer Scheme in Newtownards, County Down, run by Northern Ireland’s leading fostering charity The Fostering Network, where he met foster carers and children and young people in foster care.
The Fostering Network is delighted that the upcoming Fostering Excellence Awards, which celebrate excellence and outstanding achievement in fostering, will be supported by Dreams, Britain’s leading bed specialist.
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We are extremely grateful to all those involved in fostering who provide support and stability to children and young people in foster care during these challenging times and we will do our utmost to play our part in this.
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