THE council has been criticised by a carers campaigner after putting fostering leafets in children’s schoolbags.

Last month, we revealed how the ‘Fostering — Make a living. Make a difference’ campaign had attracted record levels of interest since it was launched in January with nearly 150 expressions of interest — 10 times the amount in all of last year.

As part of the marketing blitz, the council has taken out advertising on billboards, posters and leaflets distributed via council magazines, bills and through schoolbag drops — with some highlighting the financial benefits of fostering.

However, the latter practice has come under fire from Anne Swartz, secretary of Kinship Carers West Dunbartonshire, who says it has ‘disgusted’ kinship carers in the area. Ms Swartz said: “We feel it’s very wrong these children are being used to spread the message of this campaign. Many of these children have previously been in foster care and some of them have been upset.

“I’m not sure if they have been going to children in secondary schools in the area but they have been been in primary schools.

“They shouldn’t be sending these leaflets home with children, they shouldn’t be involving children.” Family members, such as grandparents, who look after young people and children in the absence of their parents are called kinship carers.

Currently, children in kinship care are not accorded the same rights as children in foster or residential care by the Scottish Government.

WRONG Anne added: “I’m not against foster carers, no kinship carers are, what we are against is the way the council is going about this campaign.

“I have had other kinship carers come to me and say they’re disgusted, it’s the fact they have placed earn money first as if that’s the most important thing.

“They will need to wait and see how many they get from the expressions of interest before they can really say how successful it has been.

“What has brought these people forward? And I’m not suggesting for a minute these people are doing it for the wrong reasons, but why has there been the sudden upsurge in interest from last year.” However, a spokesman for the council has stressed its number one priority is to help vulnerable children in the area.

The spokesman told the Reporter: “The council is sympathetic to the concerns of local kinship carers and awarded them additional money in November 2013 to help ease the financial burden at birthdays and Christmas.

“We cannot wait for the kinship issue to be resolved before tackling our key priority of identifying new foster carers in West Dunbartonshire.

“We have vulnerable children who will need local care and support in the near future and our fostering campaign will help address that.” He added: “All those who formally apply will be robustly assessed and those considered suitable will be presented to the Fostering Panel for approval.

“We will continue to use every available channel to highlight the fostering campaign including school bag drops, flyers with council tax bills, adverts in our tenant magazine, roadside advertising and social media updates.

“The fact local residents confirm they have received our fostering message is really encouraging as it means there is a better chance of new foster carers coming forward.”