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The Fostering Network's development worker is crowned children and young people's champion

23 November 2007

The Fostering Network’s development worker for children and young people has won a prestigious award for her valuable work with children and young people in care.

Ena Fry was crowned Children and Young People’s Champion at the Children and Young People’s Services Awards on Thursday 22 November.

This was the second annual event to celebrate the achievements of people working in the children’s workforce throughout the UK. Ena beat five other short-listed entrants to the top spot.

Ena’s career with children and young people spans more than 30 years. She spent 17 years at Camden social services and for the last nine years she has been running the young people’s project at the Fostering Network, the UK’s leading foster care charity.

During this time, she has played a key role in the development of:

  • programmes to recruit and train people to foster teenagers
  • supported lodgings schemes for young people leaving care
  • involving care experienced young people in panels to approve new foster carers.

Outstanding in her ability to communicate with young people, Ena helped to establish A National Voice, the support organisation run by and for care experienced young people. She also played a key role in the Leading Improvements for Looked After Children Initiative, where she trained and mentored 10 young people who led the first inspections of their kind of looked after children’s services.

Ena said:

"I wouldn’t have won this award if it wasn’t for the creativity, talent and inspiration of the young people I have worked with over many years. This award is a tribute to them and to all the children and young people in public care."

Robert Tapsfield, the Fostering Network’s chief executive said:

“We are absolutely delighted Ena has won this award, it is a true and deserved reflection of her endless dedication to children and young people in care.

“Throughout her career Ena has worked tirelessly to get the voices of young people in care heard by policy makers and fostering services. It is testament to her dedication that so many of the young people she has worked with have remained in touch with her and regard her as an old friend."

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Notes to Editors

  1. The Fostering Network is the UK’s leading charity for all those involved in fostering, and exists to ensure that all fostered children receive the highest standards of care.
  2. There are 60,000 children and young people in foster placements in the UK on any given day.
  3. There is a shortage of 10,000 foster carers across the UK.