How fostering can help children on the way to adoption

Thursday 18 October 2018

We’d like to highlight the connection between adoption and fostering this National Adoption Week 15 – 21 October.

Did you know US Olympic Superstar gymnast Simone Biles was fostered before she was adopted?  Authorities ruled Simone’s mother was unable to care for her and her three siblings so a foster family looked after her for three years while her grandparents applied to adopt her and her sister.

Today, foster carers in the UK are helping children to recover from traumatic experiences while the best long-term solution is found for their care. Foster families are flexible: children sometimes stay with their placement family permanently, or they may move back to their birth parents, or they may be adopted. Foster carers play a vital role by building children’s confidence to help them transition through these changes and challenges.

There are 3 times as many children waiting to be adopted than there are adopters in England. So there is an urgent need to find adoptive families for the children who so desperately need them.

Five Rivers works in an integrated way to provide flexible choices about fostering and residential care during the care planning process.