Let’s Foster is delighted to announce their continued partnership with Blackburn Hawks for the new 23/24 and 24/25 seasons.
Over the coming seasons, we are looking forward to working alongside the Hawks to support the team and look for people and families who would be interested in helping us look after the most vulnerable children in Blackburn with Darwen.
As a Council, it’s our job to ensure children are healthy, safe and happy. Moving children and young people from their family and home environment can be distressing and they may not fully understand why it is happening. We do our best to match their needs with foster carers’ skills and experience from the start so that we can give them as much stability as possible and avoid the need for them to have multiple placements. This means we need a large and varied pool of foster carers to choose from to make the best match possible for each child/young person.
Jo Siddle, Director of Children’s Services said, “There’s a lot of myths around fostering – some people assume they need experience of parenting or caring for vulnerable children, have to be married or own their own home – none of which is true,” she added.
There’s a need for all types of foster carers – particularly for teenagers and sibling groups.
“We need to recruit an extra 12 fostering households over the next twelve months,” added Jo.
“Foster carers have the capacity to help children who have had a bad start in life overcome their early life traumas, and as such they help improve children’s outcomes in the most significant way.”
There are many different types of fostering, including long-term fostering until a child is 21.
Others may prefer the idea of shorter-term care, including short-breaks care, emergency care (where you might get a call in the middle of the night because of a home alone situation) or short-term care (where a single parent might need to go into hospital or someone might be waiting to be adopted).
Approved foster carers receive a generous allowance, full training package and ongoing support is provided with a strong foster carer network to share experiences with.
If you are interested in finding out more, informal information evenings are held every 3rd Tuesday of the month from 5.30pm – 7pm at Blackburn Sport and Leisure Centre or you can visit LetsFoster.co.uk.
Let’s Foster is Proud to Support Blackburn Hawks and look forward to working together over the next 2 years.