Supporting our local Fostering Team

One of the most exciting things we've got involved in over recent years has been the initiative to encourage more families to consider fostering and adoption in order to provide safe, loving homes for some of the most vulnerable children in our community. This has been headed up by the amazing Penny Lander, with lots of practical support and encouragement from our friends at Home for Good.

We have a number of people in our community who have either adopted children or are in the process of becoming adoptive parents, but as far as I know only have one couple in the church providing a foster home (they're an amazing couple in our Sandhurst community who recently moved to a bigger home just so that they could foster more children). Penny is really keen to encourage more people to consider the possibility of fostering, and asked me whether I'd blog about it which I'm delighted to be able to do. Here's what Penny wants to say:

If you live around Bracknell, you might have seen the new Recruitment Officer for Bracknell Forest council fostering team giving out balloons at the Sports Centre last month. The reason she was there is that children in our area who go into care are not guaranteed being able to stay with a family locally, because of the shortage of foster carers. That can mean living in a residential home, or being placed out of the area, away from school and friends.

We want to support our colleagues at Bracknell Forest Family Placement Team, and help find local homes for local children.

Across our church community we already have fantastic foster carers and adopters. But there will also be some of you reading this who have been thinking or praying about fostering. If that’s you and you know now is the time to find out more, then a good starting point is Home for Good, the national charity we partner with. You can contact me via the Home for Good website. Please also take a look at the council’s website, and scroll down to a couple of excellent videos of foster carers. The Home for Good website also has some great resources.

Thanks so much,

Penny.