Become a foster carer and join our 'village'

AS the saying goes, it takes a village to raise a child.

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While in many traditional family set ups, parents will lean on grand-parents, siblings and aunts and uncles for help and support, it can be much harder for foster parents.

That's where the Mockingbird programme comes in.

Mockingbird creates a system of family-style support for foster carers in the form of constellations.

Each constellation has ‘hub home carers’ at its heart - these are usually very experienced foster carers. They are matched with up to 10 satellite households of foster carers to form what we call a constellation.

The hub home carers then take the lead in bringing their constellation together to create one large extended family, getting together for regular social events. This helps everyone - carers, children and young people alike - to build closer relationships. This has huge benefits for both the carers and the children and young people they look after.

Foster for Plymouth already feels like one big family, I've spent a lot of time with our foster carers and our staff, and it really is a fantastically warm, supportive community.