Fostering Respect

Diane Benjamin - Director of Children's Social Care in Hackney Maria Takaendisa - Anti-Racist Practice Trainer  In this bonus episode, Diane, Maria, and I reflect on how Children's Social Care in Hackney has received the podcast, our commitment to working more collaboratively, and the challenge of balancing safeguarding structures with respect for foster carers' lived experience and...

Foster Carer Liz Addressing the toxic blame culture has the greatest power to transform Children's Social Care for the better.  For everyone, including social workers.  Foster carers are the least powerful adults in the network of professionals around the child, making us the most vulnerable to being scapegoated for failures in the system. Today's episode completes the first season of Fo...

Foster carer Evette Foster carers are fully-fledged human beings with life experience, education, and wisdom to share. It is worth listening to us because positive changes can happen when we are allowed to speak. Today's episode is from Evette, who has been instrumental in bringing about some important changes in the way the Police and the Care Service in Hackney work together to prevent the...

Foster Carer Kim Flack It seems that more articles are coming out about too many care leavers leaving the system unprepared for adult life. In today's episode, Kim talks about her experience of being excluded from decision-making about her young person's education.  The young person in question was achieving academically; both Kim and the school agreed that, with support and encouragemen...

Foster Carer and Hackney Village hub host Debbie Bright Feeling isolated is one of the most common experiences for foster carers, especially new foster carers.  Access to peer support can make or break a fostering career.  So, in Episode One of Fostering Respect, we meet Debbie, a foster carer of 30 years and a Hackney Villages hub host.  She explains our vision for a care system where every foste...

There is a national crisis in the recruitment and retention of foster carers, so we want to begin some difficult conversations about how the system treats foster carers and present a vision for a more respectful, supportive and collaborative way of working.    For six weeks, a small group of Hackney foster carers and connected carers participated in a series of workshops to tell their stories, goo...