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Foster Care<br />
Fortnight<br />
Every night, 64,000 children across<br />
the UK go to sleep in the safety<br />
and security of the loving home<br />
of a family who have made the<br />
commitment to foster.<br />
Foster Care Fortnight (16 <strong>May</strong> to 29<br />
<strong>May</strong>) is a celebration of foster care.<br />
Across the UK, the work of foster carers<br />
will be showcased so that everyone<br />
can see the commitment, passion, and<br />
dedication of foster carers, who care <strong>for</strong><br />
fostered children and young people in<br />
their own homes.<br />
The pressure to recruit new foster<br />
carers is ongoing. Just as there is<br />
diversity in fostered children, foster<br />
carers need to come from a variety of<br />
backgrounds and have different life<br />
experiences, skills and qualities to help<br />
meet the needs of each individual child<br />
and young person in foster care. At<br />
present the greatest need is to recruit<br />
foster carers <strong>for</strong> teenagers, sibling<br />
groups, and disabled children.<br />
Without more foster families coming<br />
<strong>for</strong>ward during <strong>2016</strong> some children<br />
will find themselves living a long way<br />
from family, school and friends, being<br />
split up from brothers and sisters, or<br />
being placed with a foster carer who<br />
does not have the right skills and<br />
experience to best meet their specific<br />
needs. There is then a significant risk<br />
that a child’s placement will breakdown,<br />
further disrupting an already traumatic<br />
childhood.<br />
To find out more about<br />
Foster Care Fortnight visit<br />
thefosteringnetwork.org.uk/fcf<br />
36<br />
Primary Times may half term <strong>2016</strong> | www.primarytimes.net/cardiff
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