Following a Crawley News article last summer which hailed a local foster parent, Babs Bower, Henry Smith MP has fought for improvements to our adoption system and was today proud to welcome bold new Government plans to speed up the adoption system with a ‘foster-first’ policy for couples who are approved to adopt but who can still face long waits for paperwork to be completed.
Henry commented:
“I was inspired to read in the Crawley News last June that local Ifield resident, Babs Bower, had fostered over 100 children since 1970. With two young children myself, I know only too well the challenges faced by parents in bringing up and caring for our children. For Babs to have cared for 100 children, however, and for those children most in need of support, it’s clear that she embodies the most compassionate and loving side of our town.
“I wrote at the time to thank her on behalf of Crawley for her services to foster children and to raise with her concerns that she had voiced in the article relating to the excessively length checks that carers have to go through before being able to foster. I shared her concerns that this could put off prospective carers and so wrote to the Children’s Minister, Sussex MP Tim Loughton, requesting that the Government cuts the reams of bureaucratic paperwork that potential foster carers and adoptive parents are faced with.
“I’m extremely pleased, therefore, to welcome the Government’s announcement, which comes as the latest official figures show that there were 750 children in West Sussex who were in the care system last year, is designed to radically reduce the time it takes for a baby to move in with their permanent family. West Sussex County Council will be obliged to consider placing children with carers who have the potential to become their adoptive parents, rather than in temporary homes, meaning more babies will be moved into permanent homes more quickly.
“Most of us probably sometimes take it for granted that we are surrounded by a loving family to support us through the good times and the bad. It’s absolutely vital to do all we can to help the hundreds of children in West Sussex who don’t so that they can find one as soon as possible.
“I hope that the example carers such as Babs Bower have set, together with Government efforts to slash approval waiting times for prospective foster and adoptive parents, will serve to inspire others both to consider becoming foster or adoptive parents themselves and also to become more involved in their local communities.”