Discover more about fostering, adoption and supported lodgings
Every fifteen minutes in the UK, a child will come into care. Many will have suffered neglect or abuse; all will experience trauma and loss. Each one deserves a home where they will be loved, nurtured, and enabled to thrive, whether that’s through short-term or long-term foster care, with a new adoptive family, or through supported lodgings.
The church is ideally placed to ensure that every child and young person has the loving home they need. Some of us may be called to open our homes to children and young people in care, through fostering, adoption or supported lodgings.
If just one family from each church came forward to foster, adopt or provide supported lodgings, and the rest of their church wrapped around them to support, we would meet the entire need in the UK right now. This would make a profound impact on children in need, and on our nation.
- Do you want to understand more about the care system?
- Do you want to see your church become a welcoming space for looked after children and care leavers?
- Do you want to explore fostering, adoption or offering supported lodgings?
- Can you provide support to a family that has opened their home to Looked After Children?
Please come to our open evening on 1 July at The Hub in Chalfont St Peter. To help us plan seating and refreshment numbers it would be helpful if you could indicate if you plan to attend by registering at this link.
We will hear stories from individuals with first hand experience of the care system. We are delighted to welcome professionals working with and in the care system, from: :
Gold Hill is a Home for Good church
Over the years, dozens of children have been fostered by members of the Gold Hill church family. The church has welcomed the children and provided invaluable support to the carers, including child care, respite cover, prayer, befriending the children, lifts, meals, and encouragement.
Gold Hill has supported the Home for Good charity since it first started. They work to mobilise the Church in the UK to respond to the needs of vulnerable children through families stepping forward to foster, adopt or provide supported lodgings for teenagers and churches wrapping around families with support, and to influence wider society through advocacy and engagement to create systemic change.
Buckinghamshire Council Children’s Services are responsible for supporting and protecting vulnerable children. This includes providing children and their families with extra help and stepping in where necessary. They arrange for the appropriate care of Looked After Children, including fostering, adoption. supported lodgings and other arrangements.
PACT is an adoption and trauma support charity which has been building and strengthening families since 1911. Buckinghamshire Council has recently awarded the contract for its new regional adoption agency partner to PACT.
Could you become a Supported Lodgings Host?
Supported lodgings is a scheme that offers young people, aged 16 to 25, accommodation in a home environment when leaving foster or residential care. Supported lodgings hosts offer a bedroom in their home, as well as a level of support, to help develop the young persons independent living skills.
It differs from fostering because:
- you will not have any form of parental responsibility for the child
- you will not be expected to carry out daily parental tasks like a foster carer would
- the scheme is exclusively for young people aged 16 to 25 (where in foster a care a child can be much younger)
Supported lodgings differ from foster care because they empower a young person to live independently.
Come at 7.30pm for refreshments, ready for an 8pm start. After the talks, there will be a panel taking questions from those attending. There will also be opportunities to chat privately. The event will finish at 9.30pm, with further time to chat afterwards.
To help us plan seating and refreshment numbers it would be helpful if you could indicate if you plan to attend by registering at this link.
Any questions please email office@goldhill.org
