Mission Partner Update: Home for Good

Remember Fatima Whitbread?

OK – that shows my age! For those of you who don’t remember Fatima she was a world champion javelin player competing at the highest level in the 1980s. She was also brought up in the care system. Now retired, Fatima is a long-standing advocate for children and young people.

Here at St Andrew’s we are partnering with Home for Good/Safe Families (the two charities have recently merged) and we’re still working out how to respond to the need for greater support for young people leaving care – which was the theme chosen by us in 2024. We are fully aware that actually committing to fostering or adoption for most of us is unrealistic for all sorts of very plausible reasons.

BUT Over 107 children enter the UK care system every single day – and too many are failed by it. We can’t, as a Christian community who have agreed to support young people leaving care, leave it up to the next person to take action. So, this month we are asking you to do ONE thing.

Home for Good are sharing an important petition launched by Fatima Whitbread MBE, which calls on the UK Government to urgently reform the care system so that it better supports children and young people who find themselves in care through no fault of their own. This is not a petition from Home for Good, but we are asking you to stand with Fatima in amplifying her call for change and encouraging our network to consider signing and sharing it.

This is what Fatima says:

“Children in care are frequently moved between placements, lose vital relationships, and suffer disrupted education. These challenges often lead to lower academic achievement, poor mental health, higher rates of criminalisation, and even homelessness …

Children in care did not choose their circumstances. They deserve the same love, safety, and opportunity as every other child.”

St Andrew’s has signed up to be a Home for Good Church. We are being encouraged to read Fatima’s petition and consider adding our support. This is an opportunity to raise your voice on behalf of some of the most vulnerable children and young people in our society.

Please follow this link, read the petition, and then click ‘sign the petition’.

And if you would like to do one more thing……I expect a few of you have watched the BBC TV series Beyond Paradise. It’s a detective series, but there’s a sub theme in Series 3 around fostering and adoption. You might like to read the blog from Lawrence Rabb which you can find here

Thank you.

Jenny Tomlinson - Mission and Outreach Team