Roger Cooke and Tash McBride share updates, encouragements, and prayer points related to Home for Good’s work across Northern Ireland.

Joining together

Since merging with Safe Families in September, we’ve loved getting to know and work alongside our new colleagues. There’s lots to learn about each other’s work, but there’s real excitement among the team about the potential of reaching and inspiring more churches with our enlarged vision and enhanced message. On 18 November, we were joined by our joint CEOs, Kat Osborne and Tarn Bright, for a vision and values day – part of a UK-tour that Kat and Tarn conducted throughout November. It was a significant time of sharing and dreaming together.

If you are based in the Northern or Belfast Trust areas and would like to find out more about how you – or others from your church – can play your part in supporting families in your community, do let us know. Safe Families have fantastic volunteer opportunities to draw alongside isolated families. Do please pray for our Northern Ireland team during this season of reshaping of structures and roles.

November events

November saw us hosting three events alongside our Safe Families colleagues. Our NI Summit in Lurgan on 16 November was an incredible day of connection and encouragement. While our numbers were lower than last year (not least because of the SEAG transfer tests), the event was characterised by a depth of sharing and mutual support that really reflected our theme of ‘together’. We’re already looking forward to our 2025 event, which will be a shared Home for Good and Safe Families focus. We’re hoping to return to Glengormley on a Saturday in October. Keep an eye out for the date, which we hope to confirm soon.

We also hosted two special ‘Celebrating Social Workers’ events in November – one in Banbridge and one in Glengormley. These were great opportunities to thank and bless Social Workers, to share some encouraging stories from our work and to highlight the positive role that churches can play in supporting families. Both events were really well received, and they opened up some fantastic conversations and opportunities for further partnerships.

Schooling Hope

Our collaboration with Evangelical Alliance NI and a few other charities has developed into an exciting project around schooling. Many of the children and families in our networks really struggle with their experience of school, and this can negatively impact family life at home. There can also be significant challenges for schools in providing quality care and support for children with complex needs.

Despite these challenges, there is hope. There are lots of incredible church-led projects, initiatives and charities across Northern Ireland that are seeking to offer practical help around schooling.

Our aim in this project is to help church leaders understand some of the challenges around schooling and to offer some hope-filled inspiration and encouragement for how their churches can make a positive difference. We are currently listening to and learning from families, teachers and other charities to help inform our understanding and shape our response. In March 2025, we hope to publish a paper with recommendations for churches and policy makers and then host an event to present our findings and share some stories of hope.

We’d ask you to support us in this work through your prayers… and your action:

If you are a parent or carer of school-aged children, or if you’re a school principal or teacher we’d love you to complete one of our surveys. These surveys are short and simple. By sharing your experiences, you will be make a significant contribution to this project.

Complete a survey

Growing Support Groups

As mentioned in previous updates, one of the priorities for our work across Northern Ireland is to grow the number of peer support groups. These groups are an incredibly valuable source of support and encouragement for foster carers, adoptive parents and kinship carers. They provide safe, caring places for people to share with others who ‘get it’.

We’re hoping to start new support groups in Newtownabbey and in Carrickfergus in the new Year. On Monday 6 January, we’ll be holding an online info/intro session to share about more about these two groups. If you are a kinship carer, foster carer or adoptive parent in the East Antrim area, please do sign up and come along. (Find out more and register for the event) And if you’re interested in joining or starting up a support group somewhere else, please get in touch with Tash.

Amy’s triathlon

In September, Amy Wilson completed her own triathlon in support of Home for Good. Amy covered 105km (65 miles) of swimming, cycling and running - to represent the 105 children who come into care each day across the UK. The event really caught people’s imagination and it became a community endeavour, with local shops supporting her, someone kayaking alongside Amy as she swam and others meeting for a quick refuel between her swim and cycle. Amy’s husband David joined her for the long cycle leg. A few weeks after completing the event, Amy and David were approved as concurrent foster carers with the Southern HSC Trust. In October, Amy shared something of her story with HSC NI Adoption and Foster Care:

"My husband Dave and I entered the fostering and adoption journey 2 years ago. We started our journey with an introductory course with Home for Good. They were brilliant, and explained the process, the type of care options and about children that end up going into care. It was very beneficial, so much so that when we actually began the adoption path officially with HSC NI Adoption & Foster Care, we already felt prepared. The process itself is long but really helpful and informative. We had a brilliant social worker who guided us through. Many talk about how intrusive and laborious the process is but we found it really good and enjoyable. Not what we expected!"

Other highlights

Tash has had a busy few months of speaking in churches and participating in events and gatherings, including a Southern HSC Trust Supported Lodgings celebration event, a ‘Who Cares’ vision event at Emmanuel Church, Lurgan and a partners’ lunch at Lagan Valley Vineyard Church. She also represented Home for Good on a special panel after the Dublin movie premier of ‘Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot’, which is now available to view on various streaming platforms.

We’re really keen to get some more speaking engagements in her diary for 2025. If you’d like Tash or one of the team to come to your church to preach or to share at a Sunday service or midweek gathering, please complete the speaker booking form or send Tash an email at [email protected]

What's coming up?

Home for Good is partnering with The Send, a collaborative, global coalition that seeks to equip and send large numbers of young adults to ‘go’ and relationally deliver the gospel message. The Send is holding large-scale events across the UK in 2024 and 2025, with Northern Ireland’s big event taking place in May in Belfast’s SSE Arena. One of the areas of special mission focus is around fostering and adoption, so it’s been great to participate in some of the local experience events with church leaders and other organisations. Tash has been part of the project team and has been working with The Send team and others in preparation for next year’s event. We have supported gatherings in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dunfermline and are preparing for others in Stirling and Dundee before the main event in March.

What can I be praying for?

Please continue to pray with us as we work together to find and sustain a family home for every child who needs one in Northern Ireland.

• Pray for the continued process of learning and reshaping together as Home for Good and Safe Families establish itself as a newly merged charity. Pray particularly for positive integration of the teams and the work across Northern Ireland.
• Give thanks for the recent Social Worker events and pray for our partnerships with the HSC Trusts across Northern Ireland, particularly within Southern and Northern Trusts.
• Pray for the schooling initiative with Evangelical Alliance and other charities – that this work would result in positive outcomes for children, families, churches and schools.
• Pray that there will be good interest and engagement with the new support group in Carrickfergus

How do I get in touch with a member of the Home for Good team in Northern Ireland

Tasha or Roger would love to hear from you. You can email them via the links below:

Roger Cooke – NI & Nations Lead: [email protected]

Tasha McBride – NI Coordinator: [email protected]