May 3rd 2024
Celebration of fostering in North Yorkshire
Fostering North Yorkshire conference is opportunity to thank more than 60 foster carers in the region for their service.
Foster carers help turn young lives around. To achieve this, they receive full training and support from local authorities, as well as tax-free payments and allowances. In North Yorkshire, there are also short break fostering or planned regular sleepovers, which enable adults working full-time to foster at weekends in a flexible way. But the Fostering North Yorkshire has also become a fixture in the year, a chance for fosterers, their children and those working in the sector to come together, support each other and celebrate what they do.
Alan Tucker, Placement and Fostering manager at Fostering North Yorkshire, presents a certificate to fosterers Claire and Jonathan Graham to mark their five years’ service. Photo courtesy of North Yorkshire Council.
Appropriately, children and young people were the focus of the event held this year at Lakeside Conference Centre just outside York. More than 40 children took part in the event, with activities including arts and crafts, a scavenger hunt, storytelling, sports and team-building games.
But there was a serious side to the conference as well. Guest speaker Kati Taunt from Trauma Informed Practice UK held two workshops to help carers tackle trauma-related issues involving children in their care, which can result in complexities of behaviour.
Among the fosterers present, Claire and Jonathan Graham from East Ness, received a certificate and voucher acknowledging their five years’ service.
Claire Graham says: ‘Fostering is tiring, challenging and rewarding combined. The first children we looked after were just one and two years old. Our own children were 13 and 15 at the time and it was difficult to get the dynamics right. We’re proud to see how far the first two children we cared for have come on. We worked closely with the family and it’s lovely to see them all doing well.’
Jonathan Graham adds: ‘Fostering is equally challenging and rewarding. You become aware of the strengths and weaknesses you have, as well as the strengths and weaknesses you never knew you had. You take part in extensive learning around trauma as the children have experienced trauma in their childhood.’
The conference also marked its gratitude to Alan Tucker, Placement and Fostering Manager at Fostering North Yorkshire, who retires next month having been with the organisation since 2003.
‘I have the utmost respect for them,’ he says. ‘They do a difficult job and it’s amazing to see what they achieve with the children they care for. Their commitment stops children who are at risk of harm or crime ending up with poor future prospects. Our foster carers epitomise what it is to be fundamentally human.
‘Often, my role sees me having problems to solve, so it is lovely to attend the conference and see all the positives that fostering brings. Our foster carers are an amazing bunch. I’m proud to think that I’ve helped wonderful people become foster carers who then turn a child’s life around.’
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