FOSTERING AND ADOPTION

It took an item on the Victoria Derbyshire programme to get the crisis in adoption onto the agenda. They interviewed the dad in a family who'd sent an adopted child back into care, he said it was the worst decision he'd ever had to make. The scale of the problem isn't revealed by numbers because,...

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COME ON PHONE! RING!

Waiting for the phone to ring when you're up for a new placement is definitely one of the most exciting things in fostering. We're up for welcoming a new child into our home, in fact we're ready to welcome maybe two; a parent and child might be needing one of our beds - and a cot. Speaking of...

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SCARING KIDS

I'm hopping mad.It's a Monday morning and foster child came downstairs dressed for school and said;"Did you know that toast can give you cancer?"I'd seen it on the BBC news site on my ipad so I knew what she was talking about. She saw it on her phone.Christmas, don't our children have enough to worry...

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PARENT AND CHILD - FOSTERING'S FIVE STAR

We're going back into offering Parent and Child. Shows how long we've been off the list for that, when we did it it was called Mother and Baby. It's not called that any more because a) sometimes (admittedly rarely) it's the father who is bringing up the child alone and b) the child is sometimes older...

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CRISIS COMING

Had a fascinating conversation over Christmas with my niece Trish who is a Primary School teacher. In her class this year are two children who live under the same roof. One is Sam, the family's real son. The other is Kellie, their foster daughter. The family have another child of their own, a daughter...

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