Welcome to the latest edition of your Newsletter!

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Please find below a questionnaire which is for the young person(s) in your care to complete. Some young people may be able to do this alone or they may need some help from you. There is also a supporting document, (What is LILAC),, which gives you information about the questionnaire and the reason for it.

The questionnaire, once completed, can be printed off and returned by post, emailed or faxed, the details of where it needs to go to are on the questionnaire form.

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This is a very exciting time to be working in partnership with the Borough Council to develop a new fostering service. This is an opportunity that very few Carers anywhere have ever had the chance to be involved with. We are looking for Foster Carers who would like to work with the Council to develop an outstanding service that allows us to provide the best possible care for children placed with us.

If you want to help us to make the difference, this does not necessarily mean that you need to volunteer to attend additional meetings. The Foster Care Association is looking for a 'rapid response' focus group of Bedford Carers who we can contact to gauge the feelings of the Carers about any proposed developments in the journey to outstanding. However, if you feel that you can offer more to the process then we would really appreciate it if some of you could attend face to face working groups where Foster Carers will work as one team with the Fostering Service to make the difference to the children and young people that we look after.

If you want to find out more or discuss how you can make sure that your views make the difference to help shape the fostering service then please contact us on ask@bedsfostercarers.co.uk and adoptionandfostering@bedford.gov.uk or call 01234 718718

We would also like to thank everyone in the Borough Council who have worked hard to pave the way to developing a new, interim fee based fostering service. More details will be circulated soon in advance of the scheme coming into operation on April 1st. This new development will be fully reviewed before April 2015.

Look out for the new advertising campaign to recruit more Bedford Foster Carers to make the difference.

Without the support of a small group of foster carers in Bedfordshire the Association cannot support you properly.  Working directly, with two Local Authorities is likely to increase some of the work that we do to support our carer members. In some cases that you may not be aware of is that we have either been under represented or not represented at all, at some of the important, but ‘behind the scenes’ meetings including Central Bedfordshire’s Corporate Parenting Panel. The committee is concerned that without more members we will not be able to cover everything that we want to do and also that the views of what is only a handful of Bedfordshire foster carers will not be representative of everyone who carers for Bedfordshire children.

With this in mind we are seeking volunteers to become involved in some of the work that we do. Our volunteers do not need to become involved in everything, but anything that you can do would be much appreciated. Please contact us for more information.