The Parallel Parents Story
Our Story So Far...
Founders Sean and Ellen Fitzpatrick bring over 40 years of extensive experience to the heart of our agency. Their background spans youth work, juvenile justice, and residential childcare, providing a profound understanding of the needs of children and young people.
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In 1991, Sean and Ellen established Care Today (a sister organisation to Parallel Parents) as a residential children's home provider. Through this work, they identified a vital truth: most young people make significantly better developmental progress within a nurturing family environment. In response to requests from Local Authorities for high-quality foster placements, Parallel Parents was born.
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A Family-Run Ethos
The first foster carers were recruited in 1994, marking the beginning of Parallel Parents as a 'not-for-profit' family-run fostering service. Today, we remain a family-owned and operated agency. The founders' initial vision has evolved into a strong, child-centred, and innovative ethos that guides everything we do.
Leading the Way
Parallel Parents Central is dually managed by Debbie Smith and Bev Salt, both of whom have been integral parts of our team for many years. Under their leadership, and with the support of our dedicated staff, we have achieved a historic milestone: as of December 2024, Parallel Parents has been rated "Outstanding" by Ofsted for five consecutive inspections.
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Our Growing Community
What began with just two carers in Bolton has grown into a widespread community of excellence. Today, we now have 3 branches, and are currently in the process of opening our fourth! We have dedicated Social Workers and foster carers throughout:
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North West: Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Lancashire.
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Yorkshire: Leeds, Bradford, Hull and NELincs
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Midlands: Staffordshire, East Midlands, West Midlands, and Worcestershire.
As we continue to grow, our mission remains unchanged: to develop and expand our agency while maintaining the innovative, "Outstanding" fostering service that children and carers deserve.
Parallel Parents are also linked with Training 2 Care, which is a City & Guilds approved training and development centre which provides both internal and external training for social workers, managers, residential care staff and foster carers. All their courses are aimed at enhancing the quality of care given by people working with looked after children and young people.
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Training 2 Care provide specialist training for our foster carers on subjects such as behaviour management, attachment training, life story work, internet safety, therapeutic approaches, first aid, preparing for independence and much more. Training is also tailored to suit particular the interests and requirements of our foster carers depending on the type of children they look after and their individual needs.
