Fostering communities

Alec Dickson

The old Children's Department of Glasgow City sent many of the children in its care to be fostered by farming families on the Isle of Tiree, in the Inner Hebrides - a marvellous upbringing amongst loving foster parents in a near-idyllic setting - and infinitely preferable, economically and psychologically, to their being consigned to children's homes on the institutional pattern.

'What Scottish farmwives in Tiree can give to children in care, and Belgian housewives can give to the mentally handicapped, housewives in colliery communities, where pits have been closed, could give to many of these people'

Some 25 miles to the east of Antwerp is Gheel, where since the Middle Ages Belgian farming families have taken in the adult mentally handicapped, accepting them as members of their families and keeping them for life.

The British government is now running down as many as possible of the old-style immense institutions for the mentally ill and discharging the patients into community care. But it is already apparent that neither local authorities nor existing voluntary agencies have the wherewithal to look after all those discharged - and that a proportion will always need support and care. But what Scottish farmwives in Tiree can give to children in care, and Belgian housewives can give to the mentally handicapped, housewives in colliery communities, where pits have been closed, could give to many of these people referred to above. Since the DHSS has funds for this purpose, it would mean an addition to their financial resources. We need to investigate what fostering communities could achieve in Britain - and be prepared to learn from the French 'L'Arche' approach.

Alec Dickson, 19 Blenheim Road, London W4 IVB (tel 081 994 7437).

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