Last weekend I attended a charity event for Worcestershire’s Children First fostering service. It was an event organised by Kyle Daisley, Chairman of Worcestershire County Council.
I’ve attended many charity events during my Mayoral year. Every event is a chance to learn something new.
We heard about how foster parents help and support the most vulnerable children in our communities. It breaks my heart to think of the very many children who through no fault of their own are being looked after in a children’s home. Instead of a children’s centre manager, doesn’t every child deserve a warm, supportive and loving real home with parents?
It’s clear that being a foster carer isn’t possible for everyone, however there is something we can all do to help, and that is by talking about fostering. There are nearly 600,000 living in our county – there is a very good chance that there are good people who might be interested to help. But how do we reach them? Somebody somewhere just needs to be asked or given a kernel of an idea that down the line might one day lead to them applying to become a foster parent.
I listened, took their message and now I’m passing that message on. Who do you know that might be interested? You may not have a weekly blog or newspaper column but my challenge to you is to mention fostering to someone you know and ask them in turn to think of someone else that might be interested. Maybe, just maybe as a community someone you mention fostering to, could dramatically change a young person’s life forever.