Meet Jan
Jan’s entire career has been focused on children and young people, particularly those who have not had the best start to their lives. She started out as a teacher and then moved in to social work, and had also managed a residential home for children and young people before becoming a special needs and short breaks foster carer. She went on to offer emergency and respite fostering and has now been a foster carer for over ten years.
Jan has recently taken up a new role within Fostering North Yorkshire’s new Mockingbird project, and is now our first Mockingbird Hub Home Foster Carer for the Scarborough area.
Jan says: “I was really interested when the Mockingbird role came up, as it seemed a natural extension of the kind of fostering I was already doing. The benefits to the children and young people in our Mockingbird group – a kind of extended family, called a ‘constellation’ – are huge and we are just beginning to see these now as the scheme develops.”
Meet Liana
Liana’s parents Alison and Tom are foster carers. Liana knows that the care and support her parents give to some of North Yorkshire’s young people who can’t live at home with their birth families is indeed life changing.
Liana says “I like fostering because it changes the lives of young people dramatically. I enjoy fostering and having young children to help look after. There’s always something to do in our house with so many of us. I get excited when someone new comes to stay – my parents usually tell me beforehand and I help to prepare the bedroom for someone new. It can take a while for them to settle in but once they do, it’s one big family and we have lots of fun.”
To find out more about the caring opportunities available through Fostering North Yorkshire please visit www.northyorks.gov./fostering
