Highfield WI
June 2018 members’ meeting
Monday 25th June, Portswood Residents’ Garden Pavilion.
27 members + 1 guest joined us for a very warm and sunny June meeting. Members purchased NF Raffle tickets as they signed in and took their places.
Before Julia introduced our speakers for the evening, Cath gave out some notices. She congratulated our Quizzers who recently came second in the Hampshire Federation General Knowledge opening rounds. Liz, Maggie, Nancy, Jenny & Pauline were given a well-earned round of applause. Cath requested members sign up if they intend joining us for our July meeting, which is a guided ‘Titanic’ tour, as we need firm numbers for this event. A clip-board was passed around. She also informed members she had emailed everyone earlier in the afternoon regarding the opportunity to get hold of some free theatre tickets for the Nuffield next week. She asked members to reply to the Sotonettes if they were interested. She finished by thanking members for their generous donations to No Limits this evening.
Julia then introduced Jo Macklin from Southampton Fostering Services, Mary Peverall, a social worker and Paula Robinson a local foster carer, plus also Nancy Filmore – Community fundraiser for No Limits. Jo introduced herself and explained her role and quickly passed on to Mary who gave us a ppt intended for potential fosterers which explained how the fostering process works in Southampton.
Mary told us that Southampton has one of the highest levels of cared-for children in the country, the 6th highest in fact. Currently there are 450 children in care and 257 foster carers across the city. No one seems to be able to account for this high level. It takes 6 months to go through the process to become a foster carer, applicants come from all backgrounds and encompass all types of people – as of course do the children who need fostering. There are different types of fostering; respite, short-term (which can be up to 2 years), parent & child fostering (where after specialist training fosterers support both the parent/s and their children), supported placement and emergency placement fostering. Fosterers look after children up to the age of 24. She noted that the most important quality of any fosterer was the ability to ensure a cared for child was accepted and loved by their foster carers. Mary was proud to say that the support and training offered to local fosterers in Southampton was considered nationally as second to none. She concluded that they are always looking for new fosterers in the city. She then introduced Paula. Paula and her family began fostering around 6 years ago. She has 3 of her own children and began initially fostering 2 other children on a short-term basis. She currently has 3 foster children. Every 6-8 weeks or so the fostered children stay with other foster carers to provide a ‘respite’ weekend for the family, which Paula values greatly. She also has telephone support 24/7 when there are issues to deal with. She says the role has many challenges but with the support available it has been hugely rewarding for her and her family.
Finally, Nancy Filmore gave us a brief overview of what the local charity ‘No Limits’ does for children and young adults in Southampton. No Limits was set up in Southampton 25 years ago to the day and supports children up to 26 years across the city. They have a drop-in centre in town where any youngster can go and get support on a wide range of issues ranging from homelessness, counselling, mentoring, sign-posting etc., or simply make use of their washing facilities. She noted 7,000 youngsters had made contact with the service in the last financial year. The charity has 135 paid staff and receives uncertain and variable financial support from the local council and therefore relies heavily on trusts and grants from corporate and private sources. This is Nancy’s area of expertise. She finished by noting there were 2 ways in which volunteers can help – by helping with fundraising or by offering service delivery support which requires training and DBS checks etc. Application forms for either types of volunteering were available on the No Limits website.
After an informal question and answer session, members had tea, coffee and biscuits and social time. Julia brought the evening to a close by thanking all the speakers for giving up their time to come and speak to us tonight.
The evening came to a close around 9.45pm.
Signed as a true record of the evening …………………………………………………………………. Date ………………………………...
