Every fifteen minutes in the UK, a child will come into care. Many will have suffered neglect or abuse, all will experience trauma and loss. Each one deserves a home where they will be loved, nurtured and enabled to thrive, whether that’s through short-term or long-term foster care, with a new adoptive family, or through supported lodgings.

All children and young people should be able to grow up in the family and setting that is right for them. Some may be able to live with friends or family members (which is known as kinship care or private fostering), many will need a foster family, and some will go on to be placed for adoption.

• Fostering services need to recruit 8,100 new carers this year to meet this need and to account for carers who will retire

• In almost half of all placement decisions, social workers have no choice in foster carers at all

• According to the most recent figures, almost 3,000 children are waiting for adoption

• 27% of children have been waiting for more than 18 months

• 80% of looked after children live in foster care, but there is currently a shortage of foster carers with the right skills in the right locations

God calls us to respond.

Throughout the Bible we are reminded of God’s heart for the vulnerable, and particularly those without a family to love and protect them.

"A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families." Psalm 68:6

The Bible uses the terms 'fatherless' and 'orphans' to describe children who did not have the stability and protection of a family. In contemporary culture we do not use these terms, but we recognise that children coming into care are also in need of stability and protection.

As God’s children, adopted into His great family, we are called to care for the vulnerable as part of our worship, to defend those unable to defend themselves, and to seek justice on their behalf.

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress.”

James 1:27

“Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless.”

Isaiah 1:17

Children in care are amongst the most vulnerable people in our society. They need advocates. They need champions. They need families.