Love Island winners speak about the UK care system with one of our Young Ambassadors

Kai and Sanam, who have recently announced their engagement, joined Team Action for Children and took on the ultimate skydiving challenge to raise funds for vulnerable children and families.

In the build-up to the event, the Love Islanders recently met with Young Ambassador, Rachel, to ask a few questions about her thoughts on the UK care system:

Q: How has the foster care system changed and how could it be improved?

“The situation for children in care has changed a lot over the years for the better. A key thing I’d say would be good to have would be to offer every foster kid immediate counselling as soon as they’re in care. Being someone who's been in care, I think you need someone to talk to that’s not a social worker or foster carer. That would’ve helped stop so many of my mental health issues.”

Q: What is something you wish you had known going into foster care?

“I wish someone would’ve sat me down and explained to me what foster care is. A lot of people don’t actually know what foster caring is. Most people have seen foster care through the media, which is often a skewed representation of who foster children are and it gives the impression that somehow foster children are bad kids – that’s how I felt.”

Q: What advice would you give to current foster carers or those thinking of getting into fostering?

"To be patient and take time to listen to a young person. I can’t preach enough about listening. Most of my issues would’ve been solved if someone just listened or took a young person’s voice seriously. A lot of adults may think that they know what’s right.

Q: How can people help support foster carers?

"There are so many ways to be involved and help raise money for families supported by Action for Children. Take a look at their social media platforms and website; there’s always lots of opportunities to help Action for Children with their fundraising.

Having people sharing their posts does also work to showcase that your money isn’t going to some corporation – it’s actually helping a lot of people – people like me.”

The Love Island winners also shared their reasons for skydiving:

Sanam is an experienced social worker. She said: "I come across a lot of children who have had a lot of traumas in care experienced settings. My role is about putting in therapeutic support for them. I know resources are currently limited. I know how important it is to have these funds available, so I know how much this will benefit children."