Every May, The Fostering Network hosts its annual Foster Care Fortnight campaign to raise the profile of fostering across the country so that foster carers can get the recognition they deserve for their dedication and hard work with vulnerable children and young people. This year it will run from 11 – 24 May and there are many ways we can all get involved. The Fostering Network have social media tags that can be shared and we will be displaying some of  these on our Facebook page in the upcoming weeks.

We wanted to dedicate this Foster Care Fortnight 2020  to our amazing foster carer community in Nottinghamshire and to celebrate their achievements. It’s been 6 weeks since schools closed and social distancing rules became the new normal. Despite the additional pressures of home schooling and restrictions to support care arrangements, our carers and looked after children have been absolutely amazing and have adapted with positivity and resilience. We have asked staff and carers to send in photos of projects or art work that their foster families have created, or examples of where carers or children have gone above and beyond since lock down began and we’d like even more please! We will collate them with those we’ve already received and make a standalone edition of Fostering News to showcase our fantastic foster care community and will share it with you all during Foster Care Fortnight.

Please email your examples to fostering@nottscc.gov.uk by 10 May. You can send us anything except a photo that could identify a child! Many thanks.  

We are still hopeful that we will be able to have our annual Fostering’s Got Talent event this year. We are keeping an eye on the latest guidance from the government regarding social gatherings and are in touch with the venue so that as soon as we are able to we will rebook the event. Please look out for further updates in Fostering News and keep all fingers and toes crossed that we will still be able to showcase the wonderful talents of our foster carer and looked after community this year!

With immediate effect, carer access to Nottinghamshire Safeguarding Children’s Partnership (NSCP) is via the “My Learning My Career” membership. Once you have registered your email you can use your login and be able to access all available training events by clicking on Find Learning tab. 

You will then be able to select eLearning from a range of safeguarding topics. Completion of these eLearning events and the online evaluation will enable you attend the more advanced classroom training events with other professionals as part of the team around the child e.g. education, police, health and social workers (once they are available again). It is therefore important that you only use the “My Learning My Career” platform to book your training activities for NSCP training events to ensure all your training is electronically logged. Foster carers are no longer to access NSCP training by using the registration key 5432150 as your training will not be logged on “My Learning My Career” and will not be counted towards your completed number of hours.