News

We are delighted to announce that our trustee, Susanna Daus, has been recognised in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list for her outstanding work in fostering and adoption. Susanna is the manager of Islington Council’s adoption and fostering service and will be awarded a British Empire Medal.

Susanna said: ‘It’s fantastic and I’m very flattered, but a little embarrassed, to be recognised, but this is a great way to talk about the amazing work of foster carers in Islington, and the need for more foster carers and adopters to look after our very special children and young people.’

Responding to the England Children's Commissioner's second Stability Index report, Kevin Williams, chief executive of The Fostering Network said: 'The Fostering Network knows that foster care has the potential to transform the lives of children and young people living in foster homes, and the basis of that potential is stability.

Foster Care Fortnight 2018, Northern Ireland’s largest celebration of fostering, was launched today (Monday 14 May) at an event in the Seamus Heaney Centre, Bellaghy by The Fostering Network in partnership with the Regional Adoption and Fostering Service and hosted by the Northern Health and Social Care Trust.

Commenting on today’s publication of the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman’s report Firm foundations: council support and advice for special guardians, Jackie Sanders, The Fostering Network’s director of communications and public affairs said:

'We welcome the publication of this excellent report, which highlights some of the challenges that are being faced by special guardians across England.

The Fostering Network is today writing to Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland, to express our deep concern over the Scottish Government’s decision to omit continuing care allowances from their review of fostering, kinship care and adoption allowances.

It has taken many years of campaigning by The Fostering Network and our members to get to the point where allowances are being reviewed with the intention of introducing a minimum fostering allowance - the Scottish Government first made a promise to look into foster care allowances as long ago as 2006. 

More than 8,000 new foster families across the UK need to be found in the coming year to ensure that all fostered children can be found the right foster home first time, according to leading fostering charity The Fostering Network. The need is particularly for families to offer homes to teenagers and groups of brothers and sisters.

More than 8,000 new foster families across the UK need to be found in the coming year to ensure that all fostered children can be found the right foster home first time, according to leading fostering charity The Fostering Network. The need is particularly for families to offer homes to teenagers and groups of brothers and sisters.

A couple from a farming community in Draperstown have been named 2018’s Foster Carers of the Year in Northern Ireland.

Patricia and Colm Gray have been fostering for more than a decade for the Northern Trust. Alongside running a busy sheep farm and raising four children of their own, Patricia and Colm have looked after toddlers, mothers with their babies, as well as teenagers and say they simply can’t imagine doing anything else.

The Times published a ruling on its inaccurate coverage of a young girl’s fostering arrangement with Muslim foster carers in Tower Hamlets, after the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) upheld a complaint from Tower Hamlets Council about the article from August 2017.

IPSO found that the Times article incorrectly implied that a judge made a decision to remove the girl from the carers’ home because the placement was failing. However, in fact, the local authority had applied to the court for the child to be moved so she could live with her grandmother.

On Saturday there was a detailed article in The Times about kinship carers (behind a paywall) - relatives who care for children that are not their own, usually because their parents aren’t able to care for them. The article highlighted the incredible role that kinship carers play in the lives of tens of thousands of children and young people, as well as some of the major issues facing this group of carers, especially regarding woeful under-resourcing.