News from our partners: Project offering cross-county support for foster carers

News from our partners Staffordshire County Council

Children and young people in care across Shropshire, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, and Telford and Wrekin, are benefiting from a new family-based approach of foster care.

Together4Children is a partnership bringing together four local councils’ fostering services to deliver the Mockingbird project.

The programme provides extra support to foster carers and children alike, by creating a network of fostering households to replicate the structure of an extended family.

A hub carer sits at the heart of the network, known as a constellation. They offer friendship, support and guidance, as well as organising celebration events and fun outings. They are also a source of valuable advice, in the way any grandparent figure might be in a traditional extended family.

Telford and Wrekin Council, lead council for the project, and the first to establish a constellation, have seen families grow closer and relationships flourish.

Shanice Evason, a Mockingbird foster carer in the first constellation, said:-

“Mockingbird has been an incredible source of support for our child, my husband and me.  It has given us an additional opportunity to make friends with other foster carers. We mutually support one another as though we are one big family. The hub carer, who is like our family’s grandparent figure, has been amazing.”

Foster carers Stuart Forrester and Jacquie Forrester with Sadé Liburd, Senior Practitioner and Mockingbird Liaison Worker at Staffordshire County Council

Staffordshire hub carer, Jacquie Forrester said:-

“I am proud to be able to offer support to carers and their families when needed, even if it’s only a short phone conversation. I am happy in the knowledge that they know I am there for them to support in any way I can. It’s testament to us all that in such a short time, we have built solid relationships within our constellation.”

Kirstie Hurst-Knight, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member for children and education, said:-

“As the project grows, we are benefitting from having ‘ready-made’ groups of key experts, whether that is the four liaison workers who are now working together across the region to deliver Mockingbird, or our hub carers who are central to supporting other carers in their constellations.

“These groups are now coming together to support each other, share learning and develop and improve our practice.”

Stoke-on-Trent City Council hub carer, Helen said:-

“Being a hub carer family and being able to support carers, foster children and birth children is amazing. Our constellation is bonding, and we are building new friendships that will enable practical and emotional support for the years to come. We are very proud of being in the Mockingbird project.”

Foster carers Stuart Forrester and Jacquie Forrester

Formed in April 2021, Together4Children is the regional partnership that delivers adoption and permanency services for the four councils. The partnership includes Telford and Wrekin Council, Staffordshire County Council, Shropshire Council and Stoke-on-Trent City Council. The partnership has established its fourth Mockingbird constellation.

Leading fostering charity, The Fostering Network, delivers the Mockingbird fostering programme.  Anyone interested in finding out more about the programme or fostering for their council can find out more at www.together4children.co.uk/mockingbird

Further information

About the Mockingbird programme

The Fostering Network’s Mockingbird programme is an innovative method of foster care using the Mockingbird Family Model. The model centres on a constellation where one foster home acts as a hub, offering planned and emergency sleepovers and short breaks, advice, training and support to six to ten satellite households.

The programme improves the stability of fostering placements and strengthens the relationships between carers, children and young people, fostering services and birth families.  For more information visit thefosteringnetwork.org.uk/mockingbird, or watch What is Mockingbird? and Mockingbird: a really big family