HELLO TO THE WI... IT'S FOSTERING CALLING...

                                                                  

Hey!

I'm just taking a breather from talking about our recent and unexpected emergency placement, I need to go off on a tangent.

I'm just back from a Blue Sky training session on 'Minimum Standards'. Interesting; for example I didn't know that Blue Sky should be notified if you get the builders in.

One thing I've come to expect at every training session is that it will be mostly women. It's probably not politically correct to notice such things, but there it is.

At a guesstimate something like 70% of the carers at training sessions are women. I know that fostering is partly or wholly shared in many homes between the partners, but the fact is that the country depends primarily on women for its foster care.

And fostering is one of the most important jobs going. Not to mention the most demanding.


The need for new foster carers has become a crying need, and the crying is being done by hundreds and hundreds of children who have been dealt a wretched hand and find themselves in desperate need of a safe home while their real parents sort themselves.

Children of all ages, all races and creeds.
Children whose only chance lies in finding a foster mum and/or dad who can gently set them on their way in life.

I'm wondering if one of our most dependable institutions can help; the Women's Institute. 

They have more members than the Conservative party (220,000) and their dedication to righting social wrongs is famous; from climate change to equal pay for women (which is a given in fostering, btw).

My bet is that the overwhelming majority of WI members fit the bill to a tee; they have a stable home, a spare room, a clear head, and a big heart.

The WI could wipe out the fostering deficit single-handed. They'd be able to offer each other extra support for their fostering members (on top of agency/local authority back-up) at their regular meetings.

One look at their website shows a lot of love, and you need a lot of love in fostering. 

There's a lot of humanity in the WI, and the fact they're human, and only human, is underlined by the endearing spelling errors in their jams on sale in my supermarket!