New Year Honours: MBEs for Bedford foster parents

A couple from Bedford who have devoted 25 years to fostering children, many with physical or learning disabilities, have been made MBEs in the New Year Honours list.

Derek, 69, and Hazel Phillips, 67, have fostered about 25 children since they started in 1988.
Mrs Phillips said they decided to provide permanent foster care until their children become adults.
She praised her friends and family for supporting their work. "We couldn't have done it without them," she said.

'Different life'
The couple were made MBEs for services to children and families and their "total dedication to fostering and supporting vulnerable young people". Mrs Phillips said she hoped the honour and publicity would encourage others to consider taking up fostering. "To become a foster carer you must be someone who is prepared to open yourself up to this life and it is very different from ordinary family life," she said. "If you do the training and find this is something you can do, then you should do it and you will get a lot of support."

Another person appointed MBE was Roger Merton, 72, of Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire, for services to London Youth (the Federation of London Youth Clubs), football and the community in Hertfordshire.
He has spent 50 years supporting children and people with disabilities through football.

Others honoured are Irene Heathcote, 63, of Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, and Mabel Matthew, 74, from Luton, who were awarded the British Empire Medal (BEM). Mrs Heathcote has received the BEM for services to arts and crafts with Quilts4London which gave ordinary people the opportunity to become involved in the London 2012 Olympic Games by making pennants. Mrs Matthew receives the award for services to the St Kitts and Nevis Friends Association, which she has been involved in since 1984, and to the community in Luton.
source: BBC

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Foster children will be able to remain with foster carers

Foster children will be able to remain with foster carers  following a £40 million injection of funding and a new legal requirement on local authorities to provide support.
All children emerging from the care system will be able to remain with their foster carer families after they turn 18 following a £40 million funding injection and a new legal requirement on councils to provide support, which builds on previous initiatives to strengthen the mechanisms in place for care leavers.
Children’s  Minister Edward Timpson announced this week that he intends to place a new legal requirement  on children’s services to provide monetary support for every young person who wants to remain in their foster placement until their 21st birthday – allocating local authorities £40 million over the next 36 months to effect the necessary changes in time.
Edward Timpson, who grew up in a foster family with parents who fostered, feels that giving children and young people already vulnerable from being in care the right sort of support just as they are leaving care is crucial to their life chances.
A significant number of local authorities already give young people the chance  to stay but with little financial incentives, it can be testing for the foster families. Once enacted the new initiative will mean all councils will have to follow the national standard and we are allocating £40 million towards the costs.
This is a progressive  reform to the wider package of support and help  for care leavers, including changes to the procedures so eligible young people remain in care until they are ready to move out and much more effective financial help for young people leaving care at 18.
This will enable up to 10,000 young people leaving stable and secure foster placements  to transition from fostering to independence when they are ready, rather than when the corporate parent  requirements  them to.
Children in care usually have much lower educational attainment and are more likely than the general population to be out of education, work or training.
The initiative announced this week  is the latest in a series of changes the Coalition has  improved achievement  for children and young people leaving care.
Working in partnership  with Children’s Services, local authorities and third sector organisations , the Government feels it has effected the following changes :

• launched the ‘Charter for care leavers’ – an undertaking between councils  and young people emerging from care – which outlines the support they should expect  up to the age of 25, with many Children’s Services Departments signed up
• Brought in the Savings Account Initiative  for all children in care  with tens of thousands of accounts now being opened
• produced  the cross-government  strategy for care leavers, which holds together coherently the Government plan from housing to health care services, and from youth justice  to educational providers – and to help care leavers to live self- sufficiently once they have left their foster home
• Engaged with  all children’s services focussing on dramatic improvement to financial support for care leavers which has achieved a huge increase in  the number of local authorities now paying £2,000 or more through the Setting Up Home Allowance
• improved public transparency  by publishing an annual set, outlining statistics on care leavers’ educational and work status, and from this October 2013, Ofsted’s  children’s service inspection framework will focus more specifically  on the achievement and attainment of care leavers
• Brought in the pupil premium plus for all children in the care system from the first day of the fostering arrangement , raising the the school’s allowance  by £1,000
• Required every local authority  to put in place a ‘virtual school head’ – a professional tsar who campaigns for the education of looked-after children and acts as their overarching head in a corporate parenting capacity

Source : www.gov.uk

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