A FEW weeks ago, seven fostering families and 16 children gathered near Liskeard at the launch of Cornwall Council’s fourth Mockingbird constellation. The children played on a bouncy castle and in the park, and decorated their own cups to leave at the Mockingbird hub home for future visits.

That small detail stayed with me. Having your own cup waiting in the cupboard says something simple but important: you belong here, and we’re expecting you back.

Cornwall Council’s first Mockingbird constellation was launched in November 2024. The model itself was developed 20 years earlier, all the way over in Seattle, and takes its name from Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird, in which mockingbirds symbolise innocent and vulnerable people harmed or judged by society. The idea behind Mockingbird is that foster families, like all families, benefit from a wider circle of support around them.

A Mockingbird constellation brings between six and ten fostering families together, with experienced hub home carers at the centre. The families get to know each other through shared meals, outings and celebrations. The hub home can also offer planned sleepovers, giving carers a break while children stay somewhere familiar. The children build friendships, and the foster carers have people around them who understand the difficult days as well as the lovely moments, are ready to help when plans unravel, offer a listening ear or cheer a child’s achievement.

The response from families involved in Cornwall’s first constellations has been so positive that we are planning to set up another two later this year, giving more fostering families that wider circle of support.

That support matters. We have around 665 children in care in Cornwall, with around two-thirds living with foster carers, many within their wider family network. At any one time, up to 40 children and young people may need a foster home.

The Government wants to create 10,000 more foster places during this Parliament and is looking at how fostering can fit more easily around modern lives, including for people who work full-time or rent their homes. Their ambition is welcome, but recruitment is only the beginning. Each child has their own personality, hopes and favourite things, and finding the right home means matching them with carers who can offer steadiness and a place within their family life. Those carers, in turn, need to feel supported, valued and able to keep going. That is where Mockingbird can make such a difference.

Mockingbird matters to me as a Liberal Democrat because every child deserves the same chance in life, whatever their circumstances. It helps make that possible by building a strong community around foster families.

Mockingbird may have begun thousands of miles away, but it has taken root in Cornwall. Families share the load, while children know they have a wider circle of people supporting them and their own cup waiting in the cupboard. It may take a village to raise a child. Sometimes, we need to build that village deliberately.