Police made two arrests on Saturday - an 18-year-old and a 21-year old who had both been living with the same foster family - after a device exploded on a District Line train in London on Friday, injuring 30 people. A total of five people have now been arrested in connection with the incident.
The Fostering Network, which estimates there is currently a shortage of 7,180 foster carers, told CYP Now it is concerned that the publicity given to the arrested pair's time in foster placements may make it more difficult to find carers for refugee children.
"There is a real potential that those people who have come forward to care for lone asylum seekers will think twice," Kevin Williams, chief executive of The Fostering Network, said.
"That will put pressure potentially on the fostering system, where we believe there is already a shortage of placements for adolescents."
Andy Elvin, chief executive of fostering and adoption charity The Adolescent and Children's Trust (Tact) urged those considering caring for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children not to be deterred by the media attention around the case's links with fostering.
"Tact hope that people are not put off coming forward to become foster carers for refugee children or vulnerable UK children," he said.
"This case is wholly exceptional and is in no way representative of the thousands of considerate, kind and community-minded unaccompanied young people in foster care across the UK.
"Our unaccompanied asylum-seeking children tend to be grateful for the opportunities offered and highly value the education and the care they receive. Many go on to make a very positive contribution to UK society and many foster carers enjoy looking after them."
Both organisations are also keen to ensure that unaccompanied asylum-seeking children are not singled out as being particularly susceptible to radicalisation.
"Tact fears that some may use this as an excuse to demonise vulnerable refugee and asylum-seeking children," Elvin said.
"These children are deserving of our love, support, care and compassion. The overwhelming majority of recent terror attacks have been carried out by men born in the UK who grew up in their birth families."
Williams said he wants to see training around the anti-radicalisation strategy Prevent offered to all supervising social workers in the wake of the incident to help them identify concerns across their caseload. But he warned that any drive to boost training should avoid singling out unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.
"We have to be really careful not to insinuate or imply that all lone asylum-seeking children are at risk of radicalisation," said Williams.
It has been reported that the arrested pair have both spent time in the care of nationally recognised foster carers, who received MBEs for services to children and families in 2010, and were named by a number of media outets. Elvin has criticised the mainstream media for focusing on the couple.
"Tact is disturbed that mainstream media saw fit to publish the names and photos of the selfless and wonderful foster carers who have opened their home to so many vulnerable children over the years," Elvin said.
"It is baffling that journalists feel that this is fair, appropriate or in the public interest."
John Simmonds, director of policy, research and development at CoramBAAF, said communicating with the young unaccompanied children, dressing, feeding, and settling them into UK society and addressing the traumatic impact of their journey are "serious and challenging tasks".
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