Who we are

We have been foster carers for over 12 years – during this period, we have fostered a large number of children/ young people, aged 13-19 years, including unaccompanied asylum-seekers, from countries as interesting and diverse as Somalia, Kosovo, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Morocco, and more recently Albania, as well as from the UK.

Our fostering journey has taught us that every individual has the potential to develop the competence to lead a fulfilling life, provided they are given appropriate support and guidance. We endeavoured to create the right supportive environment in our home, where our fostered young people felt confident in their skills and abilities. We treated our fostered young people as any good parent would treat their own children, and aimed to give them the opportunity for as full an experience of family life and childhood as possible.

We prepared our young people with the essential independent living skills to move them onto semi-independent accommodation. However, we quickly realised there is a huge shortfall in the provisions for leaving care support, and the quality of provision can vary hugely from one provider to another.

This transition period between full time care and independence is an incredibly significant journey for young people in care, as they move on from being children to being young adults with increased responsibilities - we believe that young people moving from the security of a fostering family, should continue to be given a good quality of support. It is for this reason, we decided to establish a company that could offer the type of care we felt was missing.

In March 2016 we established Young Roots Care Services Ltd. Young Roots will focus on the provision of high quality semi-independent care and support – we aim to meet the needs of all care leavers, and will specialize in meeting the needs of asylum seekers drawing upon our own skills and experience. There is a noticeably large gap in current service provision for this category of vulnerable care leavers, as well as young care leavers in general.

Young Roots will place an increased focus on establishing relationships with young people in our care from the moment they arrive, so they can truly 'put down roots,' - we all need somewhere we can call home and at Young Roots we will provide a warm, friendly homely environment where the young person can feel safe and secure, in the knowledge that they will be taught key skills to sustain their stay with us, and be enabled to move on with confidence, and 'not simply go through life, but grow through life.'

Ayesha Saeed (Company Director), BA Hons, MA Cantab
Young Roots Care Services – "where young people don't go through life – they grow through life