Your Greenlite Blackburn Hawks are delighted to announce our renewed partnership with BwD Council’s Fostering Department for the next two seasons!!
Hawks Co-Owner, Carl Everitt commented on the renewed partnership:
‘We’re delighted as club to be working with BwD Council over the next two seasons to support the ‘Let’s Foster Campaign’ and ‘Fostering Fortnight’ to bring some awareness to a great cause and celebrate the fantastic compassion and commitment shown by Fostering Families across the borough.
As part of the Club’s ‘Hawks in the Community’ initiative, we will be providing over complimentary 50 family tickets to selected Foster Families in the area to thank them for all the incredible and selfless work they do and to enable them to watch the Hawks on us’.
Let’s Foster is delighted to announce their continued partnership with Blackburn Hawks for the new 23/24 and 24/25 seasons.
Over the coming seasons we are looking forward to work alongside the Hawks to support the team and look for people and families who would be interested in helping us look after the most vulnerable children in Blackburn with Darwen.
As a Council, it’s our job to make sure children are healthy, safe and happy. Moving children and young people from their family and home environment can be distressing and they may not fully understand why it is happening. We do our best to match their needs with foster carers’ skills and experience from the start so that we can give them as much stability as possible and avoid the need for them to have multiple placements. This means we need a large and varied pool of foster carers to choose from to make the best match possible for each child/young person.
Jo Siddle, Director of Children’s Services said, “There’s a lot of myths around fostering – some people assume they need experience of parenting or caring for vulnerable children, have to be married or own their own home – none of which is true,” she added.
There’s a need for all types of foster carers – particularly for teenagers and sibling groups.
“We need to recruit an extra 12 fostering households over the next twelve months,” added Jo.
“Foster carers have the capacity to help children who have had a bad start in life overcome their early life traumas, and as such they help improve children’s outcomes in the most significant way.”
There are many different types of fostering, including long-term fostering until a child is 21.
Others may prefer the idea of shorter-term care, including short-breaks care, emergency care (where you might get a call in the middle of the night because of a home alone situation) or short-term care (where a single parent might need to go into hospital or someone might be waiting to be adopted).
Approved foster carers receive a generous allowance, full training package and ongoing support is provided with a strong foster carer network to share experiences with.
If you are interested in finding out more, informal information evenings are held every 3rd Tuesday of the month from 5.30pm – 7pm at Blackburn Sport and Leisure Centre or you can visit LetsFoster.co.uk.
Let’s Foster is Proud to Support Blackburn Hawks and look forward to working together over the next 2 years.
Events taking place across Blackburn with Darwen to mark Foster Care Fortnight 2023
Foster Care Fortnight is running from Monday 15 May – Sunday 28 May 2023 this year.
Like last year, this year’s theme is ‘fostering communities’ and The Fostering Network hope to shine a light on the many ways people across the fostering community support each other.
Foster carers make a real difference to the lives of young people and the fortnight aims to raise awareness and celebrate the strength and resilience of fostering communities.
Blackburn with Darwen are looking to recruit 12 new fostering households this year and there are lots of events taking place across the borough to raise awareness of fostering and also information on how to become a foster carer.
Cllr Julie Gunn, Executive Member for Children’s Services, was at the launch event of Fostering Fortnight at Blackburn Town Hall this morning, she said:
“We’ve just launched Foster Carer Fortnight with a bang this morning with some fantastic drummers! I am really excited about all the events taking place this fortnight to support and raise awareness about the amazing work of our foster carers. Thank you to everyone who has organised these events and I hope they are a big success.”
Some of the support and benefits of a foster carer include:
- A generous financial allowance, which will depend on your skill level and the age of the child, you are fostering.
- Comprehensive training programme including the ‘Journey to Foster’ course and ongoing development opportunities.
- A social worker specifically allocated to you. You can expect to receive regular meetings, which are a chance for you to talk through any problems and share information about children in your care.
- Support groups for you and your family.
Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council’s Strategic Director of Children’s Services and Education, Joanne Siddle added:
“Foster Care Fortnight is an annual and important campaign that seeks to highlight all that foster carers do. It was great to attend this morning and raise awareness of fostering. Our Foster carers accomplish incredible things every day and we value them dearly. Blackburn with Darwen urgently needs more foster carers to make sure fostered children can live with the right foster carer for them. If you’ve ever considered fostering, please contact us on the numbers below.”
To find out more details about the events taking place in Blackburn with Darwen visit our website: https://www.letsfoster.co.uk/news-events/
The website also has more details to start your fostering journey, go to letsfoster.co.uk or speak to one of the team on 0800 328 6919.
