Plea for foster parents in Hartlepool amid North East shortage

Hartlepool foster carer Mally Priddy talks about the shortage of foster parents.

Transcript

00:00 Mally in his Hartlepool home and Mally when we talk about the shortage of foster carers in

00:04 Hartlepool, is it nationally, is it just Hartlepool? Why is there a shortage? Well it's nationally if

00:11 we look at the fostering network numbers for the whole of England you're looking at them saying

00:16 that we need 9,000 more carers as the numbers of children who are coming into care have gone up

00:22 rapidly over the last few years. So why is there been a more demand? I think we've had more or less

00:31 a perfect storm, we've had Covid which didn't help and we've just had more children coming into care

00:38 sort of post Covid and this just means an increase in children coming into care. At the same time

00:46 foster carers by demographic are older generation so we've had a lot of carers who've retired

00:53 and it's just been that more children into care, less carers. Someone who's thinking of coming in,

01:01 is there a lot of support for them or are they left to do it by themselves? No, there's plenty

01:06 of support if you get the right agency, somebody like Changing Futures here in Hartlepool,

01:11 they have an excellent support package, there's plenty of training. I think sometimes people

01:18 have might have worries about what it is to be a foster carer but in Changing Futures the minute

01:25 you make that initial inquiry they'll let you speak to a foster carer before they do anything

01:30 else a foster carer can come to your house and go out with you for a cup of coffee and they will

01:38 put aside time just for you and any fears or worries you have around fostering

01:44 they will answer the questions openly and honestly.