Shoreham social worker visits Uganda with Blue Sky Fostering to share skills with Child's i Foundation

The three-week trip has been funded by Blue Sky Fostering as part of its partnership with Child’s i Foundation.

Sophie, who lives in Shoreham and works in the Porstlade office of the fostering service, is travelling with Jennifer VanHeerden, a clinical practitioner from the Bristol office.

Sophie said: “Child’s i Foundation is an incredible organisation who are clearly passionate about transforming the lives of abandoned children in Uganda.

“CiF rely on donations to fund their work. The money raised is used to make sure abandoned children in Uganda are cared for in loving families, not institutions.

“I currently work as a supervising social worker for Blue Sky Fostering here in England. This role involves working and supporting both foster carers and the children in their care.

“I am visiting CiF in Kampala to share skills and knowledge gained with Blue Sky to contribute a small part towards strengthening and developing CiF’s foster care programme.”

Sophie supported her partner Ben Arnett on a 500-mile charity cycle ride and raised more than £650 to donate to the charity as part of her visit.

Read the original story here: Shoreham diabetic completes 500-mile charity cycle challenge, with girlfriend’s support

Sophie has been able to take some time off during her trip to explore the beautiful Murchison waterfalls and go on a three-day safari.

Blue Sky is dedicated to helping vulnerable children and the charity partnership has been in place for a number of years. As well as fundraising, each year, two staff members are chosen for the annual trip to share best practice.

Lucy Buck, founder of CiF, said: “The annual donation from Blue Sky Fostering keeps our life-saving programmes running and the social work skills and know-how from the teams coming to Uganda has helped us immensely to build our foster care programme.

“We are one big family and very grateful for Blue Sky’s ongoing support.”

Jennifer said it was a bigger task than they expected and the levels of poverty were ‘stark’ but there had been some happy outcomes.

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