John Timpson pledges £1m to parent training programme

Howard Lake | 19 April 2011 | News

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Businessman John Timpson CBE has pledged £1 million to help After Adoption expand its SafeBase parent training programme to families across the UK, to help reduce adoption break-downs.
Every year one in five adoptions fails, often because of attachment difficulties between the parents and child, and combined with falling adoption rates in the UK (only 2,300 children were adopted last year) an increasing number of children are growing up in the care of local authorities.
After Adoption’s SafeBase programme, however, is helping to counter these trends in regions including Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Merseyside and Wales, with over 120 families and over 200 children helped to build long-lasting attachments.
The £1million funding now ensures the successful techniques of SafeBase will be extended nationwide by 2016, allowing After Adoption to partner with more local authorities and help hundreds of families stay together.
Mr Timpson, who with his wife Alex has adopted two children and been a foster carer to over 90, says: “Over the years we have cared for many children. It hasn’t always been easy, but you learn from experience and one thing I do understand now is the importance of attachment and the incredible difference getting the right support can make”.
The four-day SafeBase course teaches adoptive parents skills and techniques to help build the relationship with their adoptive children and uses established Theraplay® techniques to create healthy attachments.
www.afteradoption.org.uk

About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale. He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.