The Power of Relationships in Foster Care Fortnight
13 May 2025
BookTrust are delighted to support Foster Care Fortnight, the UK’s biggest awareness raising campaign for fostering. This year’s theme is The Power of Relationships – at the heart of every fostering journey are the connections that make all the difference!
Child and adult exploring a Letterbox pack
Shared reading is often seen as a literacy intervention that boosts language and communication, but for a child who has experienced instability, loss or upheaval, the simple act of sharing a story can provide a moment of safety, reassurance and trust.
We know from our recent research that shared reading strengthens the bond between carers and child, fostering trust and attachment. A simple, predictable reading routine can provide much-needed stability. It provides: escapism, which acts as protective factor against adversity; a sense of stability; a mechanism for discussing difficult and charged issues; and a way of reconnecting with experiences and emotions.
If they’ve had a really difficult or challenging day, just sitting down for 10 minutes and reading a book together before bed could improve, restore or repair relationships.
Foster Carer
Research carried out by BookTrust shows that 90% of foster carers who read with the child in their care reported that it had made a positive difference to the relationship between them. The more frequently carers read with their child, the more likely they were to report that reading had improved their relationship. In interviews, carers said that spending quality time sharing a book was one of the best ways to connect with their child.
BookTrust’s programmes for foster families
BookTrust have been bringing the joy and power of shared reading to children in foster care for over 25 years through our Letterbox Club programme. Through Letterbox Club foster children receive monthly parcels of sensitively chosen books and maths games to share with the foster families.
BookTrust has helped me loads with myself, like, confidence, being grateful and most of all FUN!
Child receiving Letterbox Club
More recently, we are providing intensive shared reading support to children in foster care in the early years through our new Story Explorers programme, which was designed with the Fostering Wellbeing Pioneers in Wales. Story Explorers provides monthly story sharing kits tailored to support children and carers to build joyful moments of connection. Support for the practitioner enables them to empower the families they work with to embed sharing stories as part of their daily lives.
How we reach children in foster care
BookTrust are reaching children in foster care across England, Wales and Northern Ireland through partnering with virtual schools, local authority fostering service teams, independent foster agencies and with national partners such as The Fostering Network.
Sarah Thomas CEO of The Fostering Network spoke at Frank Cottrell-Boyce’s Reading Rights Summit earlier this year supporting Frank’s call to ensure children in contact with the social care system have shared reading as part of their daily lives:
In society, we talk a lot about how children who’ve been through trauma need specialist provision – and that is true for many of them – but there are also just as many moments of care, love and being with and together, through fostering provision, that can have just as profound an impact in relation to their recovery from their trauma and their healing. We need to talk less about reading being about education and more about the benefits of reading for connectivity, for love, for relationship building, for just being together.
Sarah Thomas, CEO of The Fostering Network
Contact our team to learn more about our programmes and resources designed with and for foster families and the practitioners who support them. Get in touch at: [email protected]
