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REPORT FOR KINSHIP CARERS NATIONAL AWARENESS WEEK 10-14 OCTOBER 2016
Aims:
There was no one celebrating Kinship Carers, we wanted to raise local and national awareness of Kinship Carers, recognize their huge contribution in keeping young people out of Local Authority care and celebrate the work they do. So we created a date in October and this became our first ever National Kinship Carers week.
In Liverpool we wanted to lead the way in getting our local authority and local councilors involved, get people talking about Kinship Families and how they could best support them. Through National Kinship forums we promoted what we were doing and encouraged others to participate in the same way.
We had meetings and discussions with staff and families to decide how we take forward our National Awareness Week. It was essential the families were involved with the process because they lead the project and are acutely aware of the lack of recognition, financially, socially and mentally.
We started our awareness campaign by having a 7-minute promotional video produced, in which staff and family contributed in telling what Kinship Carers is about, the struggles and challenges Kinship families face and the importance of our project in supporting families.
Our promotional T-shirt traveled far and wide, getting people talking. With Kinship Carers wearing it to talk about National Kinship week in Westminster and it even traveled as far and wide as the Canaries, Spain and New Zealand!
We had a cake smash challenge which was very successful and went nationwide with many families, organizations, councilors and an MP taking part in this and posted on Facebook on behalf of Kinship Awareness. This was taken up by other groups in Tyneside, Cornwall and was reported about in the Somerset Gazette!
The feedback from the week has been very positive, from everyone who took part.
We will be building on the success of this week.