The Eastern Health Board launched a campaign yesterday to encourage hundreds of parents in Dublin, Wicklow and Kildare to become foster parents. More than 1,000 of the 450 children in the EHB's care are fostered, and the board says fostering is accepted as the best option for the majority of children who have to be in care. To be a foster parent, the EHB said, "you do not need to be married, to have a job or to own your own home". What is required, it adds, is "to love children and be in a position to offer a child a happy, stable home".
Prospective foster parents can contact the EHB through the social workers at their local health centres.