Foster Care Fortnight – Help Fly The Flag For Fostering This May
From 15-28 May, communities across the UK will be marking Foster Care Fortnight™, The Fostering Network‘s annual campaign to raise the profile of fostering and show how foster care transforms lives.
The theme for 2023 is #FosteringCommunities, and we are appealing for people across our county to open their homes and hearts to one (or more) of the 850 children we care for.
There are a few ways you can help…
Remember colouring in those rainbows for the NHS during the pandemic? We are calling on our community to reach for your colouring pens once more to help raise awareness of the urgent need for more Foster Carers.
For Foster Care Fortnight, one of the children we care for has designed some posters, using feedback from our Children in Care Council (CiCC) on what they feel makes a great Foster Carer. Let’s help find a foster family for every local child: print, colour and display our posters in windows, at school, or on community noticeboards. Take a photo of your finished artwork and either email to fostering.recruitment.team@westsussex.gov.uk or upload to social media – include the hashtag #FosteringCommunities and tag Fostering West Sussex on Facebook (@Fostering in West Sussex), Instagram (@fosterwestsussex) and Twitter (@FosterWSCC).
Help Children have a better life this Foster Care Fortnight
Every child deserves to have a safe and loving home, where they can experience all that life has to offer and can fulfil their potential. There are a few ways you can help us achieve this…
- Reach out to a carer. If you work with, or know in a personal capacity, a Foster Carer, then please let them know how much we value all that our amazing WSCC carers do.
- Refer a friend. Know someone who would make a great carer? Refer them to us! If you are an existing Foster Carer, or work for WSCC, get them to quote your name and you and your friend will both receive £750 when they join our fostering family. Find more details on our refer a friend page.
- Share social media posts. Liking our posts is great, but visibility is what will make the difference, so please share our posts to groups you belong to and on your story to help us get the word out to as many potential Foster Carers as possible.
- Join a Foster Walk. Foster carers and members of the WSCC fostering team will be striding out in Bognor on 19 May, Worthing on 24 May or Crawley on 26 May. We’d love you to join us! Email fostering.recruitment.team@westsussex.gov.uk and we’ll provide all the details.
- Display your colouring sheet! Whatever your age, colouring is proven to be incredibly relaxing! So, why not print off, colour in and display our Fostering West Sussex posters?
Kelly, Head of Fostering & Kinship, has jumped on camera to share some of the ways you can help this Foster Care Fortnight!
So, talking about sharing on Social Media – below you can find our free downloadable PDF pack for you to colour in

Nikki from our Fostering Team displaying a wonderful example of a coloured-in poster
