Help Make A Wish Come True

Fairy Godmother Holly took time out from rehearsals for Cinderella at the Wythenshawe Forum to help grant Manchester City Council’s wish for more foster parents for the city’s looked after children and young people.

She met up with Councillor Sheila Newman, Executive Member for Children’s Services to help highlight the Council’s year long campaign to recruit an additional 100 foster carers over the next year.

The Council’s campaign calls for all fairy godmothers, space commanders and co-drivers who like children and who think they have the time and space in their lives to offer a loving home to a child or young person, to consider becoming a foster parent.

Foster carers from a wide range of cultural and social backgrounds are needed for children and young people of all ages. Carers are particularly needed for older children, sibling groups, black minority ethnic children and young people, mother and baby carers, and short break carers for disabled children.

Anyone can apply to become a foster carer; it doesn’t matter if you are single, married, straight or gay, rent or own your own home, have children or are unemployed. The only criteria are that the potential carer must be a UK resident and have a spare room to offer a child.

Councillor Sheila Newman, Executive Member for Children’s Services at Manchester City Council, said: “Foster carers play a vital part in helping us look after the vulnerable and young people who come into our care. We urgently need more people to come forward who can demonstrate their commitment, ability and interest in caring for and supporting these young people.”

One young girl from south Manchester who was placed in emergency foster care when she was just eight years old has given the following emotional account of what fostering had done for her life and her memories of the Manchester care system.

Amy was just eight years old when her world changed forever as she and her 10-year-old brother Rory, and sisters Emma, aged seven and Saffron, aged four, were separated and placed in emergency foster care.

This is Amy’s story in her words. None of the names have been changed.

“Me and my two sisters and brother lived with our mum. We travelled a lot and moved to lots of different houses.
I can still remember that Thursday. It was midnight, I saw Mum pick up her coat and go out of the door and that was it.
I remember the police and the police cars and not knowing what was going on. Me and my brothers and sisters were all put into emergency care.
Me and Emma were kept together, but my little sister went somewhere else and so did my brother. I cried all the time about my little sister Saffron because she had always called me Mum and I couldn’t look after her.
Me and Emma were in emergency care for around 7 months and then short-term for 2 years.
When I was 10 we went into long-term foster care, with foster parents John and Irena Curran. At this stage our brother Rory came to live with us. Our foster parents put toys in the beds and spent a lot of time talking to us. I started to trust them, but for the first two years I kept going downstairs every night after going to bed to check that they had not left us.
Our foster family said it wasn’t fair that we had been split up from our little sister.  And so at the age of 6 our little sister Saffron came to live with us too and she still called me Mum.
Saffron had got into lots of trouble before she came back to us because she’d been so young when we were split up that she just didn’t know what had happened. She just knew she had lost her family.
Our foster family made sure that each Friday was talk night, so that we could all talk about how we were feeling about our new home and go over anything that was worrying us.
Two years ago our foster parents went on to adopt me, Emma and Saffron and it was the best experience of my life. Our brother Rory had left the care system by then and was living independently. It was all I’d ever wanted – to have a family and a home.
My sister Emma says that when we were split up she felt like it was like ‘pass the parcel’ – and that she was the parcel.
If anyone has a home and a lot of love to give I’d ask them to consider fostering. I can’t thank the social workers and our foster parents enough. It changed our lives.”

Amy is now a nursery nurse, Rory works in catering, Saffron is on a childcare course and Emma is in her first year at university training to be a nurse.

Councillor Sheila Newman, Executive Member for Children’ Services at Manchester City Council, said: “Foster carers play an important part in the lives of the children and young people they look after and Amy’s story shows the dramatic effect that dedicated foster parents can have on a child’s life.”

For further details about fostering please contact telephone 0800 9888 931, or email familyduty@manchester.gov.uk or visit www.fosterformanchester.com