Anti-Bullying

No one likes Bullies, it’s a fact. What also is a fact is that there are bullies still out there and unfortunately there probably always will be. Raising awareness though of how to deal with bullies and helping bullies understand their behaviour (and hopefully change it) can only help with reducing the amount of bullying that’s out there.
 

At Park Foster Care we whole-heartedly support the national Anti-Bullying awareness campaign. Originally the campaign was confined to one week in November but in 2011 the whole of November was dedicated to supporting Anti-Bullying around the country.

We realise though that bullying doesn’t just happen one month of the year and the good work done by organisations such as Bullies Out www.bulliesout.com and Bullying UK www.bullying.co.uk are leading the way to eradicate and combat bullying behaviour and give support to those being bullied.

We can’t just leave this to others though and we should all do our part in helping to educate our youngsters in appropriate behaviour and how to cope with any bullying they may come across. Many of us just don’t know the right way to handle situations especially as bullying just isn’t confined to the school yards now that we have easy access to mobiles and the online world. Cyber Bullying is a massive problem and the majority of the social media networking sites do take this seriously with advice and guidance on how to protect yourself and how stop the bullies contacting you.

As an independent foster care agency we take this seriously and have appointed one of our Supervising Social Workers with experience in this area to take up the mantel as our Anti-Bullying Lead, arranging training and informing our carers of courses that will help them support the children in their care with any issues they may come across relating to bullying behaviour. 

What happens at an Information Evening?

In our experience when people consider fostering, it’s something they have been thinking about for quite some time. Time being months, or even years in many cases we hear about. We find that they will have done some research online or spoken to family and friends, and as useful as that all is it isn’t the same as speaking directly to people directly involved in the fostering process.

Our Information Evenings are an informal setting to meet with our fostering team; Senior Supervising Social Workers, existing foster carers and sometimes even a birth child or a young person who has been fostered.

At Park Foster Care we hold our Information Evenings on a regular basis across the region we cover; Hanley, Warrington, Liverpool, Walsall, Derby, Uttoxeter, Nottingham, Leicester, Rugeley and Leek. On average we have between 10 and 20 people attending the sessions which run from 6.45 to 8.30pm and tea, coffee and usually biscuits are provided. There will be a PowerPoint presentation but that really is only to guide us through the process (and to keep the speakers on track!), we’ll introduce ourselves and then talk you through the process for fostering. One of our existing foster carers will join us and they will honestly tell you about their experiences; the good parts as well as the not so good stories and there will be plenty of opportunities for you to ask questions of the fostering team, the foster carer or even each other.

There is no pressure at all during the evening, we believe that this is a life changing decision and you will make your own minds up in your own time. You can take away information and if you are interested in discussing this with us further we will arrange for one of the Senior Supervising Social Workers to come and visit you in your own home to talk on a one-to-one basis.