UK INITIATIVE

Local authorities urged to 'foster-board' children in care

A charity which places children from broken homes in boarding schools today urged more local authorities to follow its example.
The Surrey-based Royal Wanstead Children’s Foundation (RWCF) said an increase in levels of so-called “foster-boarding” would help solve the “crisis” in foster care and allow working couples to help troubled youngsters.
The RWCF, which has placed more than 1,500 children in boarding schools during the past 30 years, believes the combination of fostering and boarding schools works well for some children currently in council care and also for some would-be foster parents who are working couples.
Its chairman, Colin Morrison, said: “We know this works well for the right child in the right school.
“Foster children represent a special challenge for local authorities because so few carers can be found.
“The result is a situation in which many foster children have a seemingly endless succession of carers, which can be very damaging for the children concerned.”

Mr Morrison added: “Using boarding schools would enable local authorities to recruit foster carers from the ranks of working couples who might otherwise not be able to contemplate looking after children at day schools.
“Most of the country’s 600 state and independent boarding schools have excellent levels of pastoral care and individual attention — they provide a wonderful home from home for vulnerable, disadvantaged children.”
The RWCF estimates that a total of only 50 children have been placed in boarding schools by local authorities, a fifth of the number it is currently helping to support.
Mr Morrison continued: “You have to ask why, when so many local authorities are advertising so widely for foster carers, these same authorities don’t copy the approach of charities like ours so that they can attract at least some of the hundreds of thousands of working couples who would be able and willing to support a child in school holidays.

“For many of these children, that would be the best of both worlds — great schooling and pastoral care, and a stable foster family.”

Matthew Cooper
21 June 2005

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=4719880

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