fostering and adoption awards

Wednesday 21 November 2012

The success of Glasgow City Council?s campaign to recruit new foster and adoptive parents has been recognised in two UK awards for public services.

Led by Social Work Services? Families for Children team, ?Be Part of Someone?s Memories? scooped prizes at both the Guardian?s Public Services Awards and the Municipal Journal?s 2012 Awards for local government achievement. Teams from the Graphics and Communications section at Education Services?and Corporate Communications also provided invaluable support.

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The campaign, which secured wide ranging coverage across all forms of media and won the support of many prominent Glaswegians, helped Social Work to surpass its targets for recruiting foster carers and adoptive parents.??

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Councillor Matt Kerr, the council?s Executive Member for Social, warmly welcomed the national praise received by the campaign team for its effort to boost the number of households willing to care for the city?s vulnerable children.

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He said: ?I am delighted for all those who worked so hard to make the recruitment campaign a success. The honours received are richly deserved as the campaign has made a huge difference to how Glasgow can look after those children who need to be cared for away from home.

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?This latest success has again shone a light on a hugely important issue for the city. The number of children coming into our care shows no sign of slowing down and so Glasgow urgently requires more foster and adoptive parents to provide the support they need.

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??Be Part of Someone?s Memories? worked so well because it touch a nerve with people and reminded them of how they were supported and influenced by their own parents. The message from the campaign is still as relevant as ever and so I would urge anyone who has ever considered fostering or adoption to contact Families for Children as soon as possible.?

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The aim of the campaign was to recruit 35 new foster carers and 45 new adoptive parents over a 12-month period. After shifting through 1000s of enquiries from interested parties, Families for Children was able to secure 55 fostering approvals and 58 adoption approvals.

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One of the major strands of the campaign was to enlist support from famous faces such as Billy Connolly, Sir Alex Ferguson, Clare Grogan, Peter Capaldi, Michelle Mone and Kaye Adams, all of whom provided a story about a memory from their childhood. These were all used to raise publicity for the campaign and this was reinforced with tv, radio and billboard advertising as well as information being passed to interested parties via Facebook and Twitter.

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However, one to one conversations also proved to be highly effective with follow-up calls being made to everyone who used a number highlighted in advertising to text the council for information.

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The award received from the Guardian was for the best public sector communications project in the UK, while the Municipal Journal top prize was for best contender in the Children?s Services Category.
Glasgow currently has more than 1200 children in foster care and 300 in residential care with 1500 children living at home with their parents while under social work supervision.

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Anyone looking for further information on fostering and adopting for Glasgow City Council can phone 0845 270 0609, email - families.children@sw.glasgow.gov.uk or vist www.glasgow.gov.uk/memories

Source: http://www.glasgow.gov.uk/en/News/fostering+and+adoption+awards.htm

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