More than 100 years of families opening up their homes and hearts to children across the country is being celebrated this week as Barnardo’s opens its archives to reveal the history of fostering.
The leading children’s charity, which has run fostering services since the Victorian era, hopes sharing these historic images will show the incredible impact that fostering can have – and encourage more people to consider fostering at a time when the system is in crisis. The images include a family in 1964 enjoying a meal together, and children being measured, weighed and having their teeth checked outside their foster home in 1939.
Brenda Farrell, UK Director of Fostering and Adoption for Barnardo’s, said: “The Barnardo’s archives hold the history of fostering in the UK. We’re sharing these powerful images to demonstrate how people have been bringing children into their families for 150 years.
“While it’s wonderful to see these snapshots of history, we’re sharing them against the backdrop of a very real crisis in our society today. Having supported children for a century and a half, we urgently need more people to come forward and consider becoming foster carers to play their part in continuing this legacy.
“Right now, Scotland is facing a foster care crisis at an unprecedented rate, with too many children still entering the care system and an insufficient number of loving homes to accommodate them. The impact of the crisis is felt most by children in the care system. Without enough potential foster homes, children are already at risk of being placed in unsuitable situations as a last resort.
“We know fostering is a big decision, but with more children entering the care system each year, there’s no time to wait. Your skills and care can change a child’s life. The perfect time to foster a child doesn’t exist, but the right time is now. Please get in touch with us for a no strings attached conversation, and let’s talk fostering today.”
Sharon is a Barnardo’s foster carer from Glasgow. She and her husband Andrew have been foster carers for the past 10 years and have provided a safe and loving home to 10 children during that time. She says: “Fostering was something we’d always thought about when going through fertility treatment because we’ve always wanted to have kids in our life. Especially for me as I come from a huge family and it was always important for me to have children in my life and have the whole family experience.
“I got information from lots of different fostering agencies, but when I first got in touch with Barnardo’s, the feeling I had was different and I knew I wanted to go with them. I was petrified at the start. I had to leave my work one day and start fostering the next, and I remember feeling so scared the morning before the kids arrived. But when they did, we had a chat and they went up to their rooms to play and it just felt so natural. Within half an hour, it felt normal.
“Our Barnardo’s social worker was fantastic and supported us through it all. From the very beginning, she understood us and how we work and we had a really strong relationship with her. There hasn’t been a single day I haven’t felt supported by Barnardo’s on my fostering journey.
“Even though you’re working on your own a lot of the time when you have the kids in the house, Barnardo’s feels like part of our extended family because they’ve always been here to support us when we need them. If I ever feel unsure about something, or I don’t know what to do, the first thing I do is pick up the phone to Barnardo’s.”
Sharon adds: “To other people who might be considering fostering, I would highly recommend doing it with Barnardo’s. They have the time and resources to support you, especially as a new foster carer when you might be feeling lost or like a fish out of water. You need to have love and care to give to a child. Accept any help that comes your way and know you’ll have a support network that you can utilise around you.”
A crisis in fostering in Scotland was identified last year when Barnardo’s pointed to research by The Fostering Network that revealed the number of foster families required stands at 500. Speaking at the time, Martin Crewe, Director of Barnardo’s Scotland, said: “Fostering in Scotland is in crisis as the numbers of people registered to foster continues to fall year on year. A shortage of foster carers leaves hundreds of children without a safe and loving home, and that is something we are keen to address. But we strongly believe that any loving person can make a wonderful foster parent to a child in need.”
The Barnardo’s archive, one of the largest collections of records relating to children in the UK and one of the oldest photographic archives in the world, contains more than 500,000 images, handwritten entries and films dating back to 1874. These records document the experiences of children in Barnardo’s care, or adopted through them, since the 1870s.
Dr Thomas Barnardo, the charity’s founder, played a key role in developing the concept of fostering, originally known as ‘boarding out’. He strongly advocated for the benefits of this approach as early as 1889, saying: “I must declare most emphatically that even the Village Home, with all its advantages, is not so good as boarding out, and my only regret is that from the nature of the case, the system of boarding out is not applicable to every girl.
“If it were, I would empty the Girls’ Village Home tomorrow and scatter the inmates throughout the length and breadth of the land, boarding them out in ordinary homes, amid natural surroundings, among respectable working-class people in rural districts.”
For more information on becoming a foster carer with Barnardo’s in Scotland, please visit www.barnardos.org.uk/foster, or call 0800 0277 280. The charity’s lines are open from Monday to Friday, between 9am and 5pm.
At Barnardo’s, our purpose is clear: Changing childhoods and changing lives, so that children, young people, and families are safe, happy, healthy, and hopeful. Last year, we worked with thousands of children across Scotland through more than 150 services and partnerships.