Tameside Supports Greater Manchester Fostering Fortnight

THIS week marks the first ever Greater Manchester Fostering Fortnight, and Tameside Council has pledged support by signing the Greater Manchester Fostering Promise.

Led by the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, and joined by directors of children’s services, fostering staff and foster carers from all 10 local councils, the Greater Manchester Fostering Promise officially launched across the city region.

Tameside was represented by Cllr Bill Fairfoull, Deputy Executive Lead for Children and Families, Alison Montgomery, Assistant Director of Children’s Social Care and Jo Howard, Tameside Council Foster Carer.

Through the promise, Tameside is committing to creating a culture based on trust and loyalty that is caring, respectful and responsive to the needs of our foster carers. It is a clear demonstration of respecting the professional role of a foster carer, supporting them emotionally, valuing their expertise and helping them develop.

From Monday, 16 October ,to Sunday, 29 October, all 10 Greater Manchester council’s including Tameside will be shining a light on the real-life experiences of Greater Manchester’s community of over 1,400 foster carers.

Tameside Council is working alongside the other nine Greater Manchester councils with the Fostering Unfiltered campaign to grow fostering capacity in the region and raise the profile of foster carers' vital role in helping local children and young people to thrive.

As part of the fortnight of activity, the Tameside Council Fostering Service are hosting an online Q&A session on Wednesday 25 October at 5:30pm, anyone interested in finding more about fostering can book their place through Eventbrite or www.tameside.gov.uk/fostering/news

Councillor Bill Fairfoull, Deputy Executive Lead for Children and Families, said:

“We are proud to support the fostering promise to show our shared commitment to our foster carers and the important job they do to support children and young people in Tameside. The Fostering Unfiltered Campaign brings together all 10 councils to show our unity in achieving the shared goal of providing safe, loving and nurturing homes for local children. We hope that the campaign encourages more local people to consider opening their homes to children, please get in touch with your local council if you feel you could help.”

The Fostering Unfiltered campaign aims to inspire more people from all walks of life in Greater Manchester to become foster carers and provide loving and stable homes to children across the city-region. The campaign embraces the realities of fostering with refreshing honesty sharing the everyday experiences and challenges of foster carers.

Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, said: “We have a shared mission to make Greater Manchester the best place the grow up in the UK. We want this to be a place where everyone can fulfil themselves to their full potential and that they get the most stable, supportive early part of their life, we recognise we can’t fulfil that mission without our foster carers.

“I’m delighted to support this new promise that we’ve brought together as a city-region, with our ten councils playing a part in writing and developing it. It’s great to see those really clear commitments to provide clear and honest support to our foster carers.

“It's inspiring to see the work each ten local authorities do in their boroughs, but also how all ten are working together into this collective effort, it’s a good example of how Greater Manchester can add voice and value to the work each of our councils do. This promise, alongside the Fostering Unfiltered campaign and Greater Manchester Fostering Fortnight, is a classic example of where the Greater Manchester Combined Authority can help local councils work better individually and better for us collectively as a city-region. Hopefully with this promise, we will get that message out to people that this is a good place to be a foster carer and make that big contribution to society that we appreciate so much, as that’s how we will change young lives.”

If you’re interested in fostering, or simply want to find out more about the role, then visit www.fostering-unfiltered.org or complete an online form at www.tameside.gov.uk/fostering today.