Kinship conference

The conference was designed for carers who foster the children of family or close friends when their parents are unable to do so.

The event was organised by Newham Council and the six other local authorities who make up the North East London Fostering Consortium. It featured workshops including managing challenging behaviour, health and safety and the new fostering standards.

Executive member for children and young people, Councillor Quintin Peppiatt, said: "There are real benefits to kinship carers taking over fostering arrangements. The carers are known to the child and have usually been part of their life which helps the child settle quickly and enables them, in most cases, to keep in touch with their parents. This event was a great chance for carers to get together, share expertise and learn new skills."

Co-founder and chair of Grandparents Plus, Jean Stogdon, was guest speaker at the event. She spoke about her organisation which was setup to create a network of grandparents who provide kinship care and educate and influence Government on the needs of kinship carers.

Jean said: "There is no doubt that kinship care is very complex. However, whenever I challenge anyone to consider who they would want to look after their child in their absence the unanimous answer is always a member of their family or a close friend. Kinship care is often a very sensible solution and one which must be considered by social workers at every opportunity."

A kinship carer from Newham said: "The education workshop was really interesting. I did not want it to end. I found Jean's speech really useful, it made me realise that I should be more verbal at times when I had problems."