As the social-distancing rules have been relaxed, we take a look at how our own foster carers coped with and adapted to the Covid-19 lockdown, and how it affected children in their care. Some carers are trying to recreate the school day to give some structure. For...
All at AFA abhor racism and all forms of discrimination. This article is not an attempt to promote AFA on the back of Black Lives Matter. We do, however, recognise the importance of continually pushing to change and that change has been needed for very many years. We...
As a business we feel quite fortunate in the current crisis that we are an essential service delivering to the public sector and are able to continue to operate without disruption, something many businesses have not been able to do. Children in Local Authority Care...
You will no doubt have found a lot of information on the internet on this subject, but here are some key links which will give you information and help: General Advice on Covid-19 Government guidance about coronavirus (COVID-19) for health professionals and other...
Over the past year, there has been an increase in the number of babies being taken into local authority care. In some cases, where mothers have continued to abuse substances during pregnancy, babies are born addicted to drugs or alcohol. That’s why at AFA Fostering,...
Barnardo’s has one of the largest collections of archives and records about children in the world, dating from the 1870s to the present day. This archive holds thousands of files and photographs of children and young people who were looked after by the charity, either...
It's National Care Leavers Week (24 - 31st October 2019). We thought it would be good to mark the occasion by sharing this heart-warming statement from one of our care leavers: "Many people may argue that being in care is not the best place to be. There are negative...
Want to talk it through with someone? It’s the time of year when many young adults are preparing to leave home. Some will be heading to university, while others may be moving to take up a new job or have a gap year. Whatever the reason, it’s a big change in their...
On 27 August, BBC Radio 4’s Today programme ran an in-depth article on the effect of Private Equity investors buying up small Independent Fostering Agencies, in the process creating three very large organisations which between them dominate the fostering market. We at...
When you’re beginning to think seriously about applying to foster, there will be a lot of decisions to make. One of them will be who you want to foster with; your local authority or an independent fostering agency? And, if you chose a fostering agency, how do you find...