Minister for Children David Johnston talks about the success of the Mockingbird programme to help recruit much needed foster carers.
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00:00 We've obviously been meeting families today, so I'll first of all start by asking just
00:04 how impressed are you with the work they're doing with these local children?
00:07 I've been here today seeing the brilliant Mockingbird programme, which is all about
00:11 helping foster carers in the vital role that they do. Foster carers open their homes and
00:18 their hearts to very vulnerable children, and Mockingbird is all about the government
00:23 funding a programme to support foster carers to network with each other, support each other
00:29 so that they can in turn support these vulnerable children, and it's been brilliant to see it
00:34 in action.
00:35 My understanding is that it's being pioneered here in the North East, and I'm guessing the
00:39 idea is that if it succeeds it gets rolled out across the country?
00:43 In the North East we have a Pathfinder, which is part of our £36 million investment into
00:50 foster carers. We know that foster carers can stop children going into care homes, which
00:56 is really important if we can manage it because too often the outcomes for children in care
01:01 homes are not good enough, and if they can be with foster carers they can really have
01:06 better outcomes. So what we're hoping in looking at how Mockingbird works here in the North
01:12 East, that we will have found a really successful programme to improve recruitment and retention
01:17 of foster carers, and then see a lot more of this across the country.