More than 500 foster carers needed across Cambridgeshire and East Anglia

To The Moon and Back Foster Care in Cambridge supports rallying call from national charity.

A Cambridge-based fostering agency has urged more people to consider providing care for children.

To The Moon and Back Foster Care, launched in September, is supporting a rallying call from The Fostering Network, a national charity, for more people to consider providing support for children.

The agency specifically based itself in Cambridge because of the increasing number of local children needing foster care.

Co-founder and director Angela Hunt said: “Children and young people can find themselves in the care system through no fault of their own. They have often faced considerable trauma because of abuse or neglect.

“So many people would make great foster carers but they are unaware of the benefits of fostering, such as supporting a child to reach their full potential in life.

“Fostering is a serious role that requires an ability to empathise, motivate and support a child who has had a difficult start in his or her young life. We would welcome inquiries from anyone interested in fostering a child.

“There is a great need for foster families who can care for brothers and sisters together and children with disability.”

The Fostering Network says 530 families are needed across Cambridgeshire and East Anglia.

There are already 2,700 fostering households offering homes to 4,755 children.

To the Moon and Back says it is developing a different approach to support foster carers by creating positive relationships and equality, so that they feel they are an active part of a professional team supporting the child who requires care.

Angela has more than 30 years’ experience in health and social care. She was the CEO of a fostering agency in the South East and has held senior and director roles in adult services across the UK.

Her fellow co-founder, Alison Kindred-Byrne, has been a social worker for looked-after children for more than 20 years and is a respected writer of child-focused training courses. She has experience of carrying out assessments for prospective foster carers, kinship care, investigations and assessments of special guardians for the courts.

Together, they aim to give additional and ongoing training to foster carers, so they can provide more expert care for children.

They say the orgamisation, which is named after a children’s book, is based on pedagogic values - a holistic, child-centred approach.

To contact the agency, based at the Future Business Centre in King’s Hedges Road, call 01223 800420 or visit tothemoonandbackfostering.com.