Speculation mounts that the lockdown period may be coming to an end in its’ present state, with some businesses perhaps re-opening next week. If this does happen, schools may follow shortly after to allow the country’s workers to begin to grease the wheels of the economy, which have in the last few months, ground almost to a halt. Of course, this is still unconfirmed, but it seems to be becoming more likely.
Social distancing, however, looks like it is here to stay, and so the return to normality will take a good few more months, likely into 2021. Affinity will, of course, be guided by government guidelines on how we are able to operate and will, in all scenarios, be looking after the wellbeing of all of our stakeholders as a priority. However, we are certainly keen to get back out there and support you all as much as we can, and we all very much look forward to that.
Andy Robins, Assistant Director.
Affinity are at full strength in our staffing levels, we are happy to report. Staff remain working from home and will continue to do so until government guidelines change. We do have one family with a young person recently testing positive for Cov-19. The young person is isolating at home and is receiving support from their foster carers and supervising social workers, who are all doing a great job working with the young person and the local authority. Although testing positive for Covid-19, the young person has only very mild symptoms, which is a blessing. We wish them well and a speedy recovery.
Foster Carer Conference 2020 - 2021
As mentioned in the Newsletter last week, due to the Coronavirus, Social Distancing measures and the significant risk in bringing together all our foster carers in one place, we are postponing the Foster Carer Conference, originally planned for November this year. The new date provisionally is the 22nd and 23rd April 2021 (which may be subject to change if social distancing measures are extended etc). One for your diaries!
Just this morning Affinity have been accepted onto a brand-new local authority framework, called the South London Commissioning Programme (SLCP). This new group consists of 8 London boroughs for children’s services including Bexley, Greenwich, Lewisham, Southwark, Lambeth, Croydon, Merton and Sutton. Affinity are one of only 32 IFA’s to be accepted to be working with the SLCP at present. We are delighted to have been accepted and are looking forward to working in partnership with them in the following months and years. This acceptance on the new programme will result in even more referrals being put forward to Affinity.
Our secret male foster carer has written another great blog, this time around home schooling during the pandemic. This will be available to read later this week on our website blog (along with all the other blogs), so please do give it a read!
New support group sessions are being organised for later in May, so look out for emails from admin regarding dates for your area, although, of course, these will continue to remain being held virtually. There will also be some input around Alcohol Awareness at each support group. We hope you can all attend!
Our social media continues to remain open and providing useful content, including sites and links for educational matter and interesting activities during this time, on our Instagram page (affinity_fostering) and Facebook page. We are also, and will be providing more, useful blogs with similarly useful content and pieces to read of interest, so stay connected and tuned in!
Let us know the best time for us to call you and we'll schedule an appointment.
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