A DECADE of helping those at the most traumatic time was celebrated as Kinship Carers UK marked its 10th anniversary.
Mayor of Worcester Coun Stephen Hodgson and Mayoress Coun Lucy Hodgson joined legal professionals, children’s social care workers, University of Worcester Education researchers and kinship carers for the event at Worcester’s Guildhall.
Kinship Carers UK offers support and guidance to grandparents and other family members who often find themselves looking after babies, children and young people at a moment’s notice because of tragedy or trauma that leaves birth parents unable to look after their own children.
Established by Enza Smith MBE in 2011, the charity has supported more than 750 kinship families in the last decade.
The event was hosted by Clare Whittaker, a family solicitor with Harrison Clark Rickerby and Trustee of Kinship Carers UK, who spoke about the legal and financial hurdles kinship carers often face.
She paid tribute to the work of Enza Smith MBE, the Chief Executive of Kinship Carers UK and a kinship carer herself, who set up the charity ten years ago and started on the journey of supporting and advocating for kinship families, with a network of support groups and telephone advice throughout Worcestershire and beyond. In the past ten years Kinship Carers UK has supported over 750 kinship families.
Joy Squires, a former city councillor who became a Trustee of Kinship Carers UK in 2015, also paid tribute to Enza Smith MBE, particularly for the work she has done raising awareness amongst MPs and in helping set up the All Party Parliamentary Group on Kinship Care at Westminster, which now ensures that the voice of kinship carers and kinship children is taken into account in legislation. Joy ended with a plea to decision makers on local councils and at Parliament to consider kinship families in their policies and legislation.
In thanking everyone for attending, Enza paid tribute to everyone who had helped Kinship Carers UK in its journey over the past ten years and especially the kinship families whose experiences were a constant motivation to everyone to do better
