Ben Everitt, the MP for Milton Keynes North, is throwing his support behind Foster Care Fortnight, the UKs largest foster care awareness campaign, and urging constituents to consider becoming foster carers this May (10 – 23).
With over 8,500 new foster carers needed across the UK in 2021, becoming a foster carer could be the ideal opportunity for those with the right skills to give back to their community and improve the lives of children who cannot live with their birth family.
Being a foster carer is about more than just providing love for children, it is about what skills you bring to ensure that you can support their development and growth. Foster carers need to have listening, observational, and communications skills, as well as confidence, resilience, and patience.
They must be able of offer stability, to be a team player, and sometimes most vitally of all, foster carers need a sense of humour. During the Covid19 pandemic, over 55,000 foster carers provided stable and loving homes to more than 65,000 children across the UK, and you could add to this number.
By becoming a foster carer, you become part of a community who are dedicating their lives for the betterment of others with the support of your fostering service and The Fostering Network.
Ben said: "Foster carers are part of the backbone of our care system, and have again shown in the last year that they have the skills needed to ensure that children and young people can flourish in their care.
"I'd like to say a massive thank you to the foster carers in Milton Keynes who do such an incredible job helping children have a stable home for their development and showing them love. You are heroes.
Kevin Williams, Chief Executive of The Fostering Network, said: “Foster carers have accomplished incredible things every day throughout this last year. In the face of a global crisis that has affected every one of us and impacted all aspects of our society, they have worked tirelessly for the children that they bring into their homes. Foster carers have supported children and young people’s education, health, and social wellbeing, and also helped to maintain the children’s relationships with the people who are important to them but who they have not been able see in person.
“Despite the practical and emotional challenges that the pandemic has brought, foster carers have continued to provide day-to-day support, love and stability to children and young people who can’t live with their birth families – and from the bottom of my heart, I thank them. “Being a foster carer is to take on a role like no other, so if you are looking for a new lifestyle or career in the aftermath of this dreadful pandemic and you believe you have the right skills, I want you to consider becoming a foster carer.”
To find out more about fostering, and to find your local fostering service, please visit: https://thefosteringnetwork.org.uk/could-you-foster