Kinship carer welcomes boost of improved Government support
Wiltshire has been selected as a part of a pilot scheme for Kinship Carers
A Wiltshire woman caring for children of family members says extra Government support is going to be a huge boost.
The county has been selected as a Kinship Zone for a pilot scheme to provide better support to people looking after relatives children.
Hanna has been a Kinship Carer for 10 years and looks after three children of other family members - alongside her own.
She said stepping in to help when parents where unable to was a no-brainer.
"They are family, and family is important to me," she said, adding that she wanted to help in any way she could. "I put my name forward without any hesitation."
She told us it's vital that people in her position are properly supported and they're signposted to groups and organisations that can help them.
"The more support you get, and the more support you that's out there, it means if you have an issue, you know where to go and who to turn to," she said.
It is often the case that children ending up in the care of aunts, uncles or grandparents have experienced trauma, which Hanna said can bring challenges.
"You've got to approach things in different ways because they've had trauma," she said. "It's having that support around you to help."
Hanna said it all boils down to doing what's best for the children. "It's about the family, the support and the connections," she said.
Council pleased to see support network grow
Wiltshire Council's Cllr Jon Hubbard, Cabinet Member for Children's Services, says being picked to be part of the pilot programme is "tremendously exciting".
He believes it's a chance to ensure that the most vulnerable children are given better support, ensuring they get the best start possible in life, despite the trauma they might have experienced.
"We all know that young people, children are far better off within a family than they are outside of a family," Cllr Hubbard told Greatest Hits Radio. "This scheme is going to be able to enable us to do is to work with families, to be able to keep children within those families and hopefully this will mean we get them back with mum and dad, where appropriate, sooner, and give that child every opportunity."
He moved to reassure anyone in the county who is supporting a child as a Kinship carer that the authority only wants to help.
Cllr Hubbard said there is around 350 special guardians that they know of in Wiltshire, but there is likely others who are providing "informal" support and care. He's urging them to reach out to the Council, to ensure they're getting the support, both financially and emotionally, to continue in their role.
"I think there's a little bit of worry that some people have that if they approach us and say we're providing this informal support or care for this child, that suddenly social services will come and rip the child away and they'll be gone. That's not the case," he insisted, adding: "We want to support them, we want to encourage them, we want to give them all the help and support we can to continue doing the amazing work that they're doing."