Christmas get together for foster carers

This month we invited our foster carers to a Coffee & Cake event in their Local Authority. We were in Warrington on 7^th December, Halton on 8^th December and Chester on 9^th December.

We had a lovely time catching up with our carers, hearing their ideas and stories and being entertained by the children in their care! We also met foster carers who have been fostering for a really long time! In Warrington we met carers who have been fostering for 50 years, Chester 40 years and Halton 20 years!

The feedback from carers who attended the event has been overwhelmingly positive. They told us they “had a lovely afternoon catching up with other carers and staff”.

We provided foster carers with “beautiful and delicious” sandwiches, cakes and hot drinks and they all entered our free Christmas draw!

There was also an opportunity to take part in a craft activity to make a needle felt hedgehog. Those that took part thoroughly enjoyed it, describing the activity as “very therapeutic” “excellent and very enjoyable”.

We invited our foster carers to bring along a friend or family member who may be interested in fostering now or in the future. We also gave a short presentation to our foster carers to tell them what the current recruitment need is in their area, how they can help us recruit more foster carers and what incentive their Local Authority provide if they refer a friend.

Many carers were more than happy to take away leaflets and information packs for people they know would like to foster but could not make the event. The foster carers told us “the information given to help recruit new carers was very informative”.

Many of our foster carers were also kind enough to provide a short video interview of their experiences as a foster carer so look out for those in the new year! We’re going to start planning our next event for foster carers and will be in touch in 2023 with more details.

We hope all our fostering families have a lovely Christmas and once again, thank you for all that you do for our children and young people.