What By The Bridge Does

By The Bridge finds families for Young People who cannot live with their own families. These families are called 'foster families'. Children sometimes live with their foster family for a very short time, or sometimes until they are grown up.

By The Bridge has some foster families who live in towns and some who live in the country, some have a lot of children, some have no other children. We hope we have found the right family for you. Looking after children can be very tiring for grown-ups. When children stay in a foster family while their own family or foster family have a rest is called 'respite'.

Family Mentor

All our foster families have a Family Mentor from By The Bridge. They visit every month, talk to foster parents on the telephone and go to meetings about you. Their job is to make sure that your foster family has everything they need to take care of you properly. Every child in By The Bridge still has their own social worker from their home place.

Meetings

When you live in a By the Bridge family there are a lot of meetings about you and your life. Meetings to decide on plans for you, where you live, what school you go to and what doctor and dentist you see are called 'Planning Meetings'. Meetings that look at how things are working out and what happens next are called 'Reviews'. Meetings between you and your own family are called 'Contact'.

People who work at By The Bridge

People who work at By The Bridge know that there is no other person in the whole world exactly like you. We want you to know this too. We want to help you find the gifts and talents that you have and to help you to grow up into the person that you were meant to be.

We want you to enjoy change, to know about other people and the way they live and to want to know more and more about the world you live in. We want you to enjoy your life and we want everybody that you meet to enjoy being with you. Whether you are young or old and wherever you live there will always be rules. Good rules help people to live together and enjoy themselves.

At By The Bridge we have 4 rules that we live by. You could do the same.

1. To get to know and like yourself and what makes you different and special.
2. To get to know other people and what makes them different or special.
3. To get to know where you live and what makes it different and special.
4. To get to know and care for all other living things and what makes them
different and special.

Really this is just ONE rule; to behave in a way that keeps you and what is precious to you, other people and what is precious to them, and all living things - SAFE............ALWAYS.

Moving On

Some children move back home. Some children move to adoptive families. Some children move into a place of their own once they are grown up. Everyone feels very strongly when they move. Sometimes it's frightening, sometimes it makes us sad and sometimes we get very angry, sometimes it's exciting. All of these are the right feelings to have. At By the Bridge we will help you to deal with your own feelings and the feelings of the people who care about you. Moving can be a good thing to happen.

You Tell Us

When you first join By the Bridge you will be sent a form you can fill in at any time you feel unfairly treated. It is very important that you know how to complain if anyone is not treating you well. (If you lose your form, don't worry, you can telephone us and we'll send you a new one, you can also let us know if you need any help filling it in).

When children and young people come to a By the Bridge family they are given their own card to keep in their wallet or purse, this is called a 'Keep In Touch' card. There is a special number for you to text at any time - even when you have grown up or left By the Bridge - we still want to know how you are!

By the Bridge would like to hear from you if you have anything to say (good or bad) about being in care.

Every year at By the Bridge a group of young people are invited to meet with the Chief Executive and talk about ways to improve fostering. This meeting is called 'The Young People's Forum', this is held so that the Board of Directors always consider ideas from children and young people, not just the adults.