Children's services
Keep children within their communities; more foster carers are needed in Walsall
Published on
Appeal for more foster carers during Foster Care Fortnight.
Too often, due to a lack of foster carers, children are placed with foster families away from their local communities, and sibling groups are separated. This warning comes from the UK’s leading fostering charity, The Fostering Network, joined by Walsall Fostering Service.
This issue is highlighted during Foster Care Fortnight (9-22 May), the charity’s annual awareness raising campaign, as the charity calls for more people to come forward to foster, to ensure that children in need of a foster home can be cared for locally. In Walsall, at least 20 more fostering households per year are needed, if not more, to make sure every child that can’t live with their own family gets the care they need and is well supported within their community.
Foster carers who can care for teenagers and siblings are particularly needed, to ensure that children can stay together with their brothers and sisters. Support for sibling groups is particularly needed, to ensure that children can be cared for together and don’t lose vital connections to their family.
Currently, there are over 200 children living within almost fostering families in Walsall and the number of children coming into care keeps rising. The reasons children become looked after vary widely, including a parent’s illness or another problem which means they can’t be cared for by their own family. Some children may have witnessed domestic violence or drug abuse, and others may have been abused or neglected.
Some foster families look after children on a short-term basis, but for many, fostering offers them a secure, permanent home. Foster carers in Walsall provide support and care in a family setting and enable children to stay in their local community with everything that is familiar to them. This minimises further disruption to their lives by helping them stay in their school, close to their friends, and maintaining connections with other family members.
Each child’s circumstances and needs are different, but every child has the right to have their needs met within their own community, together with their siblings if they have an
“ More people are urgently needed to come forward to foster, if we want to make sure that our children can stay local and be cared for in their community. If you think you have the space in your home and your heart, and the skills needed to help children thrive, please contact your local fostering service. You can become a foster carer no matter your age, gender, relationship status or sexual orientation.
The fostering community is open to everyone who wants to make a difference in a child’s life. We want to invite all the different communities in Walsall to get involved in fostering. It is important that different identities are represented within the fostering community here in Walsall.
Our Walsall foster carers provide an incredible service for children in care, which we highly appreciate, and we can’t thank them enough. By supporting each other and working together as a team, our fostering community makes sure that our children can grow up locally and safe, in a nurturing and loving environment, to reach their full potential. “
Find out more about fostering at
Website: Fostering
Email: fosteringinwalsall@walsall.gov.uk
Tel: 0800 923 3706
