In 1945 Paul Field decided to leave his work with the Waifs and Strays Society and founded The Children’s Family Trust. In forming the Trust he took children he had formerly looked after in his previous role into his own family and promised they would be provided with a ‘Family For Life’. Despite the challenges of providing for his newly extended family Paul wanted to take his vision a step further and recreate what he had done with his own family in other families, encouraging them to take on the care of children other than their own, providing them with the opportunity of a real ‘Family For Life’ too.
Over a period of time Paul was able to find other families that were also willing to take care of several children at any one time. Some of these families cared for and raised 20 children or more alongside their own. Some went onto adopt several of their children. In all several hundred children were cared for by The Children’s Family Trust on a ‘Family For Life’ basis and now many of these ‘pioneering’ parents have grandchildren and great grandchildren within their family.
Paul Field’s work was given national recognition in 1958 through being the subject of a TV programme ‘This is Your Life’. His biography was published in 1960 and a second book published in 1996.
Today we remain a registered charity and continue to provide foster placements for many children on a ‘Family For Life’ basis. Several of our ‘Heritage’ parents are still with us and as such we celebrate their amazing achievements each year by bringing them and their families together. Several of the children they originally cared for have gone onto foster for The Trust. And despite living through many, many changes regarding regulatory approaches to childcare the basic principles of The Children’s Family Trust remain. Once a Trust child, always a Trust child. We continue to provide practical, emotional and financial support to many adults who were originally cared for by Trust families.
As a charity we still rely heavily on public support to fund our work. Our values remain unchanged and have never been compromised from Paul Field’s view in that a loving natural family is every child’s birth right. Our focus is to ensure all of our resources are used to provide high quality services for each of our children. How do we do this……..by recruiting exceptional families who in turn provide amazing care, patience, understanding, stability and much needed love to any child on a ‘Family For Life’ basis, however long this might be for.
At The Children’s Family Trust we are well aware of the awesome task that is ‘fostering’ and as such value and treasure our wonderful Foster Families. Their values remain the same today as Paul Field’s original vision in 1945, for our Foster Families fostering is both a way of life and a vocation, giving their most precious commodity to changing children’s lives, their time.
