12/05/2008
Be a champ for kids!
A former world boxing star is urging Liverpool people to become champs for children.
Ex-WBC Super Middleweight Champion and Olympic bronze medallist, Robin Reid, is teaming up with local foster carers to urge many more local people to foster.
Robin, from L8, was himself fostered by heroic carer Lynne Reid, 60, who has fostered more than 100 Liverpool and Merseyside children over the past 35 years. She is still in touch with every single one of them.
Robin will attend a special event at St John's Beacon, city centre on 17 May, celebrating Foster Care Fortnight (12-25 May). The event will give people the chance to speak to local foster carers and hear all about their experiences, as well as meet the council's fostering team and find out everything there is to know about fostering.
The council's executive director for children's services, Stuart Smith, said: "Foster Care Fortnight gives us a great opportunity to raise awareness about the need for foster carers in the city, as well as highlighting and celebrating the important work they do. I'm delighted Robin Reid is supporting our efforts to find happy homes for Liverpool children.
"Whether it's providing a permanent home, offering short-term care at a difficult time or helping a child with disabilities and their family take a break, you'll find you can make an extraordinary difference.
"Fostering takes real patience, dedication and stamina to look after children at what's often a troubled time in their lives - but the rewards can be fantastic. If you can offer a welcoming home and a family life to a child who cannot live with their own parents, you'll find it won't just be their life you change for the better, but your own as well."
There are currently 320 foster carers in Liverpool, but many more are needed. The council has more than 600 children in foster placements at any one time, aged from birth to 18 years. Foster carers are needed for children of all backgrounds in Liverpool, but there is a particular need for carers for boys aged 5-12, brothers and sisters and ethnic minority youngsters.
Foster parents in Liverpool are also backing the council's latest drive to recruit more carers as part of Foster Care Fortnight. Allan (60) and Barbara (61) from South Liverpool are full-time foster carers and have looked after for 20 children over the last 16 years. In 2004, they took on their biggest challenge yet, when they provided a home for three sisters from Africa.
The girls, 18, 14 and 12, arrived in the UK as unaccompanied asylum seekers, and spoke little English. Four years on, and they are thriving in their new Liverpool home and doing extremely well in their social, sporting and academic lives.
Barbara said: "The best thing about being a foster carer is the opportunity to make a difference and see kids blossom. If you can change the life of even one child, it's an amazing thing.
"It isn't easy. It's very hard looking after someone else's child, and many of the children have complex needs, but you get plenty of support - there's always help on hand. I've enjoyed every minute of being a foster carer, and neither I nor my husband would change what we do for the world!"
The fostering information day takes place in the viewing area, St John's Beacon, Houghton Street on Saturday 17 May, from 11am - 4pm. Everyone is welcome!
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