PRESS RELEASE FROM ALISTAIR STRATHERN MP
MONDAY 7 OCTOBER 2024
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Alistair Strathern, MP for Hitchin, has written to the Children’s Services leads of Central Bedfordshire Council and Hertfordshire County Council to mark Kinship Care Week and to call on them to review the support they currently provide Kinship Carers in their area.
Kinship carers look after and raise children in the absence of parents. They are often wider family members or friends. They are not classed in the wider care sector, despite doing the work of foster carers, meaning the support they receive is limited.
Mr Strathern has written to both local authorities to call for them to support efforts to provide more therapeutic support for kinship carers, reduce barriers to financial help and to ensure Kinship Care is appropriately prioritised within the council’s children services directorate.
Since first being elected last year, Mr Strathern has been a champion for Kinship Carers, hosting many of them in Parliament and chairing the first Westminster debate on how we can make kinship care easier after the publication of the first-ever National Kinship Care Strategy last year.
This week the Government announced the establishment of a Kinship Care Ambassador, and reforms to make it easier for councils to green light kinship carers raising children rather than foster carers, but Mr Strathern is keen to see more done, and will be continuing to push for action locally and in Parliament.
Alistair Strathern MP said:
“Kinship carers in Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and across the country play an inspirational role in taking on caring responsibilities for young people in their wider family unit, often at a moment of real trauma.
“They provide better outcomes for the young people in their care than if they had typically had to enter the formal care system, and often at significantly lower cost to the local authority.
“But falling outside the formal care system, they often don’t have access to the same financial, practical and emotional support available to foster carers.
“We need to redouble our efforts to support these heroes in our communities, and I support the Government’s work to do just that.
“Locally though, we shouldn’t wait for national government action to do more. That’s why I’ve asked our council’s to ensure they are leading the way in supporting Kinship Carers, and following examples of best practise from other local authorities.”
Notes for Editors
You can see a clip from Mr Strathern’s kinship care debate here
You can see an article covering the Government’s Kinship Care changes here
You can see attached a photo of Mr Strathern with a group of Bedfordshire Kinship Carers, taken last month.
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