The red carpet will be rolled out for the premiere of a film which highlights the positive impact foster carers can have on children’s lives across the region.
The three-minute film – funded by 13 local authorities, led by Coventry City Council, and produced by Reel Twenty Five – focuses on a key issue in fostering and the work done to keep brothers and sisters together.
It uses the concept of ‘giants’, or people who help us in society such as foster carers, and also to highlight the strong bond and relationships that brothers and sisters have as they ‘look up’ and care for each other in life and become ‘giants’ to each other.
Coventry City Council approached its partners across the East and West Midlands’ regional fostering recruitment forums, and involving 13 local authorities in the project to ensure the finished film would showcase and raise awareness of the need for foster carers across the regions.
The local authorities are: Birmingham, Coventry, Derby, Leicester, Leicestershire, Sandwell, Solihull, Staffordshire, Stoke, Telford & Wrekin, Walsall, Wolverhampton and Worcestershire.
Alastair Gibbons, executive director of children’s service at Birmingham City Council, said: “In Birmingham hundreds of children get the chance to experience caring and secure family life anew because of the dedication of our city’s wonderful foster carers, we always need more – as a every day of the week there are children and young people who need a foster family to care for them.
“This film not only shows how fostering helps children to thrive in what are often tough times, but also how foster families’ own lives can be enhanced as well. The film will, we hope, encourage lots of people to find out about fostering during Foster Care Fortnight.
All partners will be sharing the film online via their social media accounts, and it will also feature in advertising breaks on Sky TV during Foster Care Fortnight, which begins on 8 May 2017.
To find out about fostering in Birmingham, please visit www.birmingham.gov.uk/fostering
