Dave Thomas: A good moment to find out about fostering

This week saw the start of Foster Care Fortnight, which is running until Sunday May.26

Celebrating these awareness raising weeks are important to us as a Council, even more so in this case as we are Corporate Parents for children and young people who find themselves in our care system.

Being a Corporate Parent is like being a parent to our own children, wanting to protect them, keep them safe and prepare them for adulthood. 

We will always act in the best interests of children and young people. Making decisions which help them to achieve the best outcomes they can. We will also oversee and challenge the level of support children receive in terms of their health, wellbeing, education, aspirations, accommodation, and preparation for independence. 

The theme for this year’s Foster Care Fortnight is Fostering Moments. This is giving us the chance to celebrate the moments that define fostering journeys, big and small, building confidence along the way by making young people feel safe and create memories.

Here in Torbay we are so grateful to all our fantastic local Foster Carers for all they do to support children and young people. Foster Care Fortnight is a really great opportunity to both celebrate our existing Foster Carers and to encourage more local people to think about Fostering.

Foster Carers and those they care for will all have moments and memories, and we know from our local Foster Carers that they find it so rewarding to see the real difference they are making to children’s lives.

Many of our local foster carers in Torbay have described fostering as a ‘gift’ and a ‘privilege’ and said that when you become a foster carer, you join the wider Torbay fostering ‘family’ and have access to not only local council services but a big local peer support network of other foster carers.

As with most other areas, we really need to recruit more foster carers in Torbay and find a loving home for children in care. There are currently 351 looked after children in Torbay, and of these, 226 are living with foster carers. We need more local foster carers as nearly 40 per cent of looked after children from Torbay live more than 20 miles away from home.

We are currently working with our local Foster Carers on a brand-new Fostering recruitment campaign. Through this, and to encourage others to sign up, they will be sharing their own personal Fostering moments and memories with you. We are excited to be launching this soon so please keep an eye out for it. 

Our Foster Carers have told us what their favourite Fostering moments are, and I thought you might like to hear what they told us.

David said: “Seeing the children you fostered moving on and being happy and having a real shot at life. That’s the real reward.”

Dawn and Rachel also told us: “The best thing about Fostering is seeing them become more confident and creative. Our best fostering moments are days out, they’re always fun.”

If reading this has made you think about becoming a Foster Carer, or you just want to find out more, our Fostering team are running a number of events over the next week or so. 

They will be attending the popular Devon County Show at Westpoint this weekend as well as being in all three of our town centres and libraries as well as in Newton Abbot. If you do see them while you are out and about, please go over and have a chat, ask them any questions you might have about Fostering. All the dates for the events are on our website and advertised on the council social media channels and in our One Torbay eNewsletter that goes out every Friday.

If you miss them or can’t make them, you can also contact our Fostering team on 01803 207845 or visit our Fostering webpages on the council’s website.