People in Wolverhampton are being encouraged to give local children the best possible start in life – by opening their homes and becoming foster carers. Foster Care Fortnight, the UK’s biggest foster carer recruitment campaign, gets underway today, Monday 16 May, 2016 and members of the Fostering for Wolverhampton Team will be out and about offering advice and guidance to individuals and couples who are thinking of fostering.

The City of Wolverhampton Council is hitting the road as it looks to recruit more foster carers. It is rolling out its new Fostering for Wolverhampton bus for a roadshow calling into different parts of the city later this month. Members of the Fostering for Wolverhampton team, along with foster care champions, will be on board encouraging people to consider taking up this life-changing role.

Adoption in the Black Country & Adoption Focus, the new name for the local regional adoption consortium will be taking to social media this Monday (25^th) from 6pm to give the public a taste of what goes on at an Adoption Info Event. As the info event takes place at The Holiday Inn, Great Barr the team will be tweeting and facebook messaging all the key facts and information that is shared.

Foster carers who have looked after more than 150 children from Wolverhampton over the last four decades have been rewarded for their services by being named MBEs in the Queen's New Year's Honours List. Kath and Roy Shayler fostered their first child way back in February 1972 – and haven’t looked back since, going on to offer a loving home to scores of other local children over the last 43 years.

More LGBT adopters and foster carers are needed to provide loving, stable homes for children in Wolverhampton.  As part of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Adoption and Fostering Week, an appeal has gone out for LGBT people to consider taking on this life changing role.

Following the announcement about interventions in children’s services Children and Families services Minister, Edward Tim, said: “I am delighted that Eleanor Brazil has agreed to take on the role of Commissioner in Sandwell.  Eleanor has considerable experience of helping failing local authorities to improve, most recently in Slough, where her leadership led to the successful establishment of the Slough Children’s Services Trust."