97 children in foster families

There are currently 97 children in foster care and 120 approved foster carers. Of these 22 families were trained to foster next of kin and 80 are fostering or are waiting to foster unrelated children.

The main goal of the fostering service is to have each child who is presently in a residential home placed in a safe, nurturing family who will seek out and fulfil the child's needs. However, in Malta it is not possible to foster all the children in care due to legal restrictions.

Appogg offers constant support to foster families. Each foster family is provided with the service of a social worker, child in care benefit irrespective of family earnings, medical tests, counselling and therapy, if necessary, for the fostered children, support groups, and supply of books, videos and other material related to fostering and continuous training.

Commenting on these statistics, Deputy Prime Minister Dr Lawrence Gonzi said that Govern-ment was giving a lot of importance to fostering and in the last years set up the fostering team being managed by Appogg. Moreover the child in care benefit was introduced in last year's budget to support foster carers with their expenses.

He said that this service is one part in a continuum of children services that Government was developing. Appogg is moving fast into developing a myriad of children's services to ensure that children are cared for and protected especially those who have gone through some trauma such as their parents' separation.

A total of 28 couples were approved as foster parents during 2002 and nine couples are currently following a training course, on successful completion of which, they will be eligible to become foster parents.

Another such training programme is due to start next May. Families and married couples from all walks of life are invited to attend.

They will be familiarised with the whole fostering process, from the day the child is placed in the family to day s/he will leave the foster family either to go back to the original family or to get on with his/her adult life.

Anyone interested in attending this training programme, can contact Appogg's foster care team on 2125-5502, or contact Alison R. Sammut on 2122-2066 for more information.