TACT celebrates 30 years of making a difference to children’s lives this year.
Despite staff coming together in Manchester for a day of celebration, the festivities were very much focussed on the incredible work of foster carers and staff all with a common goal: to help and empower young people to change their own lives. The presenter and journalist Ashley John-Baptiste was also on hand to share his own journey through care.
TACT’s history can be traced back to a small office in South London in 1993, expanding to eventually cover the wider areas of East Midlands, West Midlands, Wales, South West, North West, East London, Scotland and Yorkshire and the North East. TACT’s commitment as a charity to reinvest surplus income has resulted in some truly innovative new services. In 2018, we established TACT Connect – a community for our care-experienced young people. Our Education Service was born in 2019, followed by our own Health Service in 2022.
In 2022, we also fully reviewed our mission and values, to make sure that they were relevant, inspiring and that they reflected our objectives. We didn’t stop there though. We also began our journey to becoming a more trauma informed organisation.
We have never stopped campaigning, lobbying and advocating for children and young people at government level.
Our CEO, Andy Elvin, remains the Chair for the Fairer Fostering Partnership – a group of charitable and not-for-profit fostering agencies across the UK
“A big happy 30th Birthday to TACT! A massive thank you to everyone at the organisation from the ground up. The longer that I’ve been with you guys… understanding how much work you do and how much impact everyone in the organisation is able to make.” – Solomon O.B, TACT Ambassador
Since 1993…
• We have approved over 1600 fostering households
• We have cared for over 6000 children and young people
• We have had 128 fostering households who have been with us for over 10 years
TACT remains the largest dedicated fostering charity. We’re so proud that 98% of our fostering household would recommend fostering with TACT.
We were overwhelmed by the many good wishes from both our current foster carers and care-experienced young people. These comments alone have made the last 30 years worthwhile:
“I hope you have a good birthday TACT. Thank you for changing my life. As someone who was in care and now is a member of TACT Connect, it’s wonderful to work on the other side with the young children in TACT.” – Care-experienced young person
“I want to say a big congratulations to TACT for 30 years in fostering as a charity. Thank you for everything that you have done for me.” – Debra, TACT Foster Carer for 14 years
“I’d like to wish TACT a very happy birthday and a massive thank you for not only TACT Connect, but all the wonderful experiences I’ve had. You’ve seen me grow from a child in care to a thriving adult.” – Care-experienced young person
We would like to say a big ‘thank you’ to our amazing foster carers and our fantastic teams of staff. It is because of you that we are able to evolve, and develop new services and communities to support our young people. It is because of you that we can help and empower children and young people all over the UK.
Here’s to 30 more years!
