First national campaign aims to encourage fostering children in care

A NATIONAL campaign to encourage more volunteer families to foster children in care has been launched for the first time.

Ireland has one of the highest percentages in the world of children in care who are now in foster homes. Currently about 92 per cent of the 5,300 children in care are in foster homes and there are just over 3,000 foster families in the State.

The "Could you give a child a chance?" campaign will be promoted by the Irish Foster Care Association (IFCA) and the Health Service Executive (HSE).

A range of information sessions and events, organised by HSE fostering teams across the country, will take place in Dublin, Cork and Limerick as part of Focus on Fostering week. The aim of the campaign is to raise awareness of fostering and to assist HSE local health offices, which place children in foster homes, in recruiting foster carers.

Fostering is a service for children who, for a variety of reasons, cannot live with their own family. This may be for a short time, perhaps a week or two, or can be a longer term requirement.

The awareness week will demonstrate to interested families the benefits, both for themselves and for the children involved, of the fostering experience. It will also highlight the support services that are available to foster families including social worker assistance and financial support.

"It is important that families see for themselves what fostering is about. There aren't really any deterrents. It can be challenging at times, but you get a lot of support to do it," said Aidan Waterstone, the HSE's national specialist in children and family service.

"I think fostering culturally sits very easy with Irish people. We are constantly looking for new entrants."

IFCA chairperson Anne Rennison said recent studies carried out at Trinity College Dublin and also in the mid-west had shown that fostered children are generally very happy in foster families.

Among those present at the launch yesterday at Dublin's Manion House was Wayne Dignam (32) who was fostered to a family in Bray after his alcoholic father beat Wayne's three-year-old sister to death in a Ballymun flat 27 years ago.

Mr Dignam, now a father-of-three, said a sense of normality is critical to ensure that children in care grow up to be well-adjusted adults.

"You are giving children the opportunity of a loving home with a structured environment that they would not have got before. Having a home, friends and local school and all of those simple things that people take for granted is what you are giving to a child. Parents get it back in buckets and spades. You get so much love back from fostered children because they appreciate it so much."