If you have a room in your home and heart, consider fostering a London child
29 May 2024, 15:07
- Cllr Kizzy Gardiner is Waltham Forest’s cabinet member for children and young people
Opening your door to a child or young person, often after they have suffered some form of trauma, is not an easy ask.
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But thanks to the generosity of foster parents many youngsters who would otherwise find themselves in a care home, are given a loving, stable place to stay.
Unfortunately, across the capital there are not enough foster homes for all the children in need.
In fact, with 9,700 children currently in need of homes, there are four children for every single foster home.
To make matters worse, over the past decade there has been a dramatic fall in the number of Londoners coming forward to become foster carers.
In 2014 there were 3,685 fostering households but by the end of March 2023. there were just 2,560. An overall drop of around a third.
A survey carried out for the Foster Care Fortnight, which ended on Sunday, found that space may be the biggest issue.
Almost one in three (31%) London adults said they were unlikely to become a foster carer in the next five years, saying a reason for this was lacking the space.
To help make things easier for those who are considering becoming foster carers, 14 local authorities across London have come together for the first time.
Local Community Fostering is a consortium of six northeast London boroughs (Waltham Forest, Barking & Dagenham, Havering, Newham, Redbridge, and Tower Hamlets).
Foster with West London is a partnership between eight west London boroughs (Brent, Ealing, Hammersmith & Fulham, Harrow, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and Westminster City Council).
The new services will work together across London to support people who want to be foster carers as they begin their journey. We’re aiming to recruit more foster carers and provide foster homes to support and nurture our young people.
So, if you have a room in your home and room in your heart, please do consider signing up, it could well be the first step to changing a child’s life.
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