Imagine you live with a partner and when they want you to make them a cup of tea, they click their fingers, give a clear order, “cup of tea” and when you bring it (if you do!) they feed you a choccy drop and say “good boy/girl.” Would you feel you had any value other…
Foster care: what does it really mean? You might know it happens, but do you really know what it entails? Fortunately for myself, I grew up with the best friend whose single mum was a carer. At that time, she cared for two beautiful young brothers. I grew extremely attached to the boys, and at…
It’s Foster Care Fortnight 2019 and my 15th or 16th year working in the sector. It’s been so long I’m allowed to not quite remember when I started! Fostering remains one of the most amazing things anyone can do or at least one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen someone do. I have…
As parents and foster carers, we are always concerned about our children/young people being vulnerable. When I was a foster carer and my children were of school age, I used to worry about them being bullied at school or being made to feel left out and isolated. How times have changed and how I wish…
UK Fostering and Charity World are delighted and inspired to be supporting The Tope Project – care leaver charity for their Christmas day event and meal. The attendees are all care leavers who have no one else to spend their Christmas with and are isolated from family. The project is run by an amazing group…
My name Nicky Hudson. I am the Director of UK Fostering North East and an also an ex foster carer. I have just been reading an article by the North East Regional Children in Care Council where young people have voted on improvements they would like to see in the care system. I feel that…
LAC Review – What are they? LAC reviews, what are they? Everyone involved in the fostering sector should be well aware of this due to their importance. Well at least that’s what we are told. LAC reviews are considered as one of the most imperative multi-professional meetings for looked after children. They allow for information…
So, it recently came to light that my own 12-year-old son had taken a pen knife into school. The school didn’t call me, it became apparent that something had happened when he was introverted and not himself one evening. After lots of questions he eventually confessed that he had been “caught” by a teacher with…
During 2017, tinkering away on his laptop and scribbling notes for most of the year was 33 year-old Ben Westwood, a former child runaway. He was writing his debut book ‘Poems From a Runaway’ , which is a collection of sixty stories about his life until the age of 16 years old. Sleeping in ditches…
In the news today, the Children’s Commissioner’s Office has published a statement saying, ‘Thousands of ‘pinball kids’ are being moved around the care system with too much instability’ and points out that most LAC experienced one or more moves during 2016/17. As professionals we already know this; we know that instability causes additional psychological harm…