The Raft is a registered charity providing support, empowerment, signposting and guidance to care-experenced families in Leiceser and Leicestershire.
Care experienced families include those who are foster carers, adopters, kinship carers and care-leavers. The charity is run by care-experienced families, for care-experienced families.
The Raft became a charity in 2021, and we now have a growing team of volunteers, committed to supporting care-experienced children and their families. There are no paid members of the charity - it's all volunteer led.
We decided to called ourselves “The Raft”, for two main reasons:
1. As a symbol of a life raft, going out in the storm, offering support when its needed most, and
2. Because a raft is a collective noun for a group of penguins! When faced with extreme, harsh conditions, penguins huddle together in community to protect their young.
The Raft is built on the principle that rather than ‘holding it all together’, we’ll be stronger and healthier as carers and raise more resilient families if we…hold it (all the complexities of the care sector) TOGETHER.
There’s a huge need for services to support care-experienced families In Leicestershire:
- Over 1000 local children are in contact with the foster care system.
- 31% of care leavers at age 16+ are not in any form of education, employment or training
- 50% of looked-after children will have a criminal conviction by early adulthood
- 25% of the prison population have been in care, compared to 1% of the general population
- Local Covid-19 restrictions hit Leicester's families harder as this city had the longest time in lockdown in the whole of the UK.
- (December 2023 figures)
The charity is determined to change these stats, and runs trauma-informed events, activities, training, signposting and informal advice and guidance for parents, carers and families.
If you want to explore how you could partner with us, please get in touch! We are looking to develop a safe, committed and trusted team, which will involve a considered, reflective approach as well as all the relevant DBS checks etc.