Foster care saves lives. Our work deserves employment rights | Jimmy Johnstone

The law must be changed to ensure proper support for vulnerable children placed in people’s homes

My wife and I became foster carers because we wanted to make a home for young people who needed one. We put everything into that, even risked our own lives. We tried to do right by the children in a system that exploited us and neglected them with terrifying consequences. When we discovered that we had no rights and no redress, we knew we had to change the law.

Foster care workers need to be recognised as employees or workers not just because with recognition comes the rights every worker deserves, but because without them we are vulnerable to exploitation and the children in our care are vulnerable to neglect.

Related: The homeless death of Kane Walker: how we let down the kid from care

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from Children | The Guardian https://ift.tt/31J9jsd