Training provider, The Foster Care Training Hub, has launched ‘The Big Initiative;’ a nationwide project. It’s the UK’s first cohort of free preventative online courses for young people across the UK on some 50 subjects including gangs, knife crime, gambling, bullying, and self-harm.

The goal of The Big Initiative is to empower looked-after children, educate them on the dangers of certain issues and enable them to have an impact on their social circle. This will help them make better choices in life, and fulfil their potential. It’s a dedicated online platform that works to bring looked-after children and their foster families free support and guidance that will help change lives.

Every time a young person completes a free online course via The Big Initiative, they enter a prize draw with the opportunity to win prizes including iPads, mobile phones, concert tickets and day trips.

Speaking about The Big Initiative, a 15 year old girl in foster care said:

‘I have found it hard to go to school because I don’t enjoy it, and it’s not really my thing. My social worker Debbie and my foster carers allocated me the Social Media and Internet Safety course on The Big Initiative and I found this really interesting and learnt a lot especially about turning off my snapchat location so no one can find me, I prefer doing these courses than going to school.’

The Big Initiative also provides free online training and resources for parents; designed to empower them to be the best parents they can be. The free parental online courses include reflective practice and listening skills, autistic spectrum disorder and bullying, plus well-being courses that cover subjects such as depression and suicide, and drugs and alcohol awareness.

For more information visit The Big Initiative.

New Family Social was one of four organisations supporting LGBT+ people that took part in a new crowdfunding event – City for LGBT+ (#City4LGBT). The event raised over £25,000 for New Family Social, Gendered Intelligence, J-Flag and the Centre for Law & Policy Research. You can find out more about the event on the Funding Network’s website.

LGBT+ Adoption & Fostering Week – which returns today (4 March) – calls on more LGBT+ people to explore these routes into parenting, after the number of looked-after children in England hit a new high. Some 75,420 children were classed as looked-after in England in 2018, rising four per cent from the year before. One in eight adoptions in the country are now to same-sex couples, but there remains an urgent need for more LGBT+ people to explore both fostering and adopting.

The campaign unites agencies keen to work with LGBT+ applicants and New Family Social, the UK’s charity supporting LGBT+ adopters and foster carers. Throughout the week some 90 information events will take place across the UK for interested potential parents. There’s also support online with a series of new audio case studies from LGBT+ adopters, foster carers and agencies.

Tor Docherty, New Family Social chief executive, said: ‘We’re pleased to see the proportion of same-sex couples adopting continuing to rise in England and Wales. But there’s still much work to be done to support and encourage LGBT+ people to adopt and foster – and vitally important for those children in care.’

Find out more about the campaign on the New Family Social website, follow it on Twitter at #proudtoadopt and #proudtofoster or on Facebook.

A £2.3 million Welsh Government investment for adoption support services in Wales has been announced, as has the new ‘Adoption Register Wales’.  The investment will be spent through the National Adoption Service’s five regions across Wales to strengthen adoption support services, enhance staff levels and improve ways of working in key areas of support for adoptive families.

The new register is an essential part of the matching process in many adoptions and will support prompt family finding. No longer just for children who’ve been waiting the longest, but for all children with an adoption plan in Wales, the register gives adopters more say in their family-finding.

Suzanne Griffiths, Director of Operations for the National Adoption Service, said:

‘The new register supports our commitment to the best possible family finding and matching for children and adopters. It is a bilingual service making it more inclusive and also gives adopters supported access to view children’s profiles and make decisions, with the support of their Social Worker.’

Part of the investment has also been used to match fund an additional £250,000 from the National Lottery Community Fund, granted to Adoption UK to deliver its Therapeutic Education Support Services in Adoption programme (TESSA).

Ann Bell, Development Manager, Adoption UK Cymru, said:

‘TESSA gives an adoptive family access to a clinical psychologist and an experienced adopter, giving them coping strategies and an insight into how other parents have worked through challenges to help their family flourish. Early intervention is crucial to successful adoptions and TESSA has proved extremely effective in Northern Ireland, with adoptive families saying what a huge difference it has made to them. The additional funding from Welsh Government will significantly increase the scale and reach of TESSA in Wales, making it more widely available to new adoptive families.’

For more information on adopting in Wales, visit www.adopt4vvc.org