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The strategy will support foster carers to better understand how the education system works, and to feel better equipped to engage, support, and educationally challenge the children young people in their care. It also calls for foster carers to be viewed as an equal part of the team around the child to ensure they are able to support the ambitions and aspirations of the children in their care.

The strategy is supported by a detailed action plan and the Welsh Government will monitor delivery against the plan on an annual basis.

The prestigious event will take place in the Hilton Hotel, Belfast on Friday 20 May 2016. Each year these awards recognise and celebrate the contribution individual foster carers and kinship foster carers make towards the lives of children in foster care.

Following an announcement by the Government that unaccompanied asylum seeking children will be brought to the UK, Kevin Williams, chief executive of The Fostering Network, said: “This move will provide safety and security for children, and foster care has a massive role to play. We call upon the Government to ensure that local authorities are properly resourced to meet the challenge that they have set.

The Fostering Network is to work with the Children’s Food Trust, and the National Association of Care Catering, in a new partnership to explore the issues which can prevent children in care from eating well and from growing up with the skills they need to do so as adults.

A Freedom of Information request by The Fostering Network in Scotland has revealed that some foster carers in Scotland miss out on the essential financial support needed to care for fostered children, suggesting that they may be paying out of their own pocket. This is because the Scottish Government haven’t introduced a national minimum allowance for foster carers.

In response to the Government in Westminster’s announcement on 13 January regarding adoption, and in particular education secretary Nicky Morgan’s assertion that ‘Every single day a child spends waiting in care is a further delay to a life full of love and stability – and this simply isn’t good enough. We have a responsibility to transform the lives of our most vulnerable children, making sure they get the opportunities they deserve’, Kevin Williams, chief executive of The Fostering Network said:

The Fostering Network in Wales is calling on foster carers to share their views on the establishment of a National Fostering Framework across Wales.

​A growing number of new fostering families is needed during 2016 to ensure the provision of stable, secure and loving homes for the record number of fostered children in the UK, according to figures published today by The Fostering Network.

The Fostering Network welcomes the appointment of TV’s Debbie Douglas, and her daughter Lydia Bright, to the role of Government Fostering Ambassador in England. Debbie and Lydia are best known as being stars of The Only Way is Essex.

Debbie, and her partner David Bright, have been fostering for 22 years and also have four birth children, including Lydia.

We would like to congratulate five members of The Fostering Network who have received New Year honours.