Big Hearts Celebrate 3 Years of Support to Kinship Care Families

Big Hearts Celebrate 3 Years of Support to Kinship Care Families

This week, Big Hearts hosted their 4^th Kinship Family Day at Tynecastle Park, which remains the largest gathering of Kinship Carers across Scotland!

Over 300 adults and young people took part in a host of free activities, including music tuition, football games, stadium tours and a very popular alpaca petting! Local organisations were on hand throughout the day to share information on support services available to Kinship Carers. The families received the visit from Big Hearts’ Trustee Ann Budge along with Hearts’ first-team players Anthony McDonald, Christophe Berra and Jamie Brandon.

Big Hearts’ annual Kinship Family Day aims to celebrate the achievements of Big Hearts’ Kinship Care programme, using the power of football to reach out to families in need of support. In the past three years, Big Hearts has provided free comprehensive support to adults and young people living in a kinship care setting – a form of care often under-represented which concerns a third of ‘looked after’ children in Scotland. The programme includes a weekly After School Club in partnership with Mentor Scotland and a Befriending service delivered with the Broomhouse Centre (pictured).

Craig Wilson, General Manager at Big Hearts said:
“We launched the Kinship Care programme three years ago to raise awareness of Kinship Care and ensure the most vulnerable of these families can access the support they need. Since then we have engaged with over 200 families, and developed a comprehensive range of support to help these young people and adult carers thrive.”
“Today we’ve hosted our 4^th Kinship family Day at Tynecastle Park and it has been fantastic to see 15 ‘new’ and ‘hidden’ Kinship Care families coming forward to find out more about the support available, whilst enjoying a fun-filled day across the Stadium.”

 Heather McVeigh, Director at Mentor Scotland said:
“As lead partner of Big Hearts’ Kinship Care programme, we are delighted to be here today to celebrate our 4th Kinship Care Family Day together. Our close work with Big Hearts over the past three years has enabled to significantly raise awareness of Kinship Care across Edinburgh and reach out to more Kinship Care families who need support. We are excited to see what the future of our partnership will hold.”

Bridie Ashrowan, Chief Executive at the Broomhouse Centre said:
“We always enjoy taking part in Big Hearts’ Kinship Family Day! It is such a fantastic opportunity for Kinship Care families to enjoy a great day out at Tynecastle Park – and for local organisations involved in the Big Hearts’ programme the chance to get together and share what we do to support these families.”