In the second bonus episode of this ‘Family Matters’ season, Tarn Bright, Co-CEO of ‘Safe Families’ and ‘Home for Good’, shares insights into the practical, financial and emotional issues that need to be addressed when providing support for at risk children and families.

Some key points of interest covered in this episode include the following:

• Tarn introduces herself [01:18] and then explains how ‘Safe Families’ and ‘Home for Good’ came together to form a combined charity with a shared focus on working with the Church to prevent children entering the care system, to support families in need and to campaign on related justice issues. [02:24]
• Tarn shares some of the ups and downs of her faith journey, including very difficult teenage years, striving for business success and a powerful conversion experience that led to a complete change of direction. [05:45]
• Tarn goes on to talk about her various Church and Christian Charity roles and comments on the life-changing potential of the gospel message of ‘Shalom’ - spiritual, social, emotional and economic wholeness – when it is lived out by Christians and churches in their communities. [11:39] On a personal note, she also describes how she came to adopt Mack and Charlie. [14:08]
• The Bible verse that has had the greatest impact on Tarn’s attitude towards money and finances, and has enabled her to handle them with a ‘light grip’, has been Psalm 24.1, ‘The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.’ [17:01]
• Tarn highlights the importance of financial literacy, particularly when it comes to understanding common financial activities and mechanisms. Not only Society but also the Church should be providing this knowledge because of the potential for good that can be achieved when this happens. [19:06]
• Tarn speaks about the significant responsibilities that are attached to being responsible for the finances of a charity. As well as regulatory requirements and fulfilling the aims of the charity, employee considerations need to be taken into account, as does the unpredictable nature of the current financial climate across the UK. Maintaining a focus on God’s provision and his faithfulness in such circumstances can be challenging but, in Tarn’s experience, has been the crucial perspective to adopt. [21:39]
• Tarn shares three ‘stories of hope’ to illustrate the transformative effect of volunteers and adoptive parents on family situations, ranging from life-changing support for women in isolated and vulnerable circumstances to a group of five siblings who have been able to grow up as a ‘family within a family’. [26:09]
• If anyone wants to contact ‘Safe Families’ and ‘Home for Good’ for support or to make enquiries of any kind, the best approach is to visit the website and to use the contact telephone number (0333 4141488) to get in touch. (An online form is also available.) [30:12]
• When asked for one final comment, Tarn urges each one of us to count ourselves in rather than out because that allows God to squeeze every ounce of potential and contribution out of us. [32:36]

A further bonus episode with a special guest will be published on 10 June 2026.

Suggestions or feedback arising from this episode can be sent via email to whereyourtreasureis@freerangepodcasting.co.uk while messages via Instagram should be directed to @whereyourtreasureispodcast.

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Simon

Welcome to ‘Where Your Treasure Is…’, the podcast where faith meets finance.

Bex

I'm Bex Elder.

Simon

And I'm Simon Glazier. Each episode we're going to explore how biblical wisdom can guide our everyday money decisions.

Bex

We'll be looking at how we can give generously, save wisely and navigate the complex financial realities we face.

Simon

But remember, investments can go down as well as up.

Bex

This is, ‘Where Your Treasure Is…’

Simon

Let's get started.

Bex

Hello. We have another guest episode which I'm super excited about. I'm here with my co-host Simon, a financial adviser. How are you today, Simon?

Simon

I'm just loving these guest episodes, Bex. I think we should just keep doing more and more of them - high quality guests, high quality conversations and much less talking by us, which is good news for our listeners as well!

Bex

Absolutely! And we are getting to talk to some really interesting people and have really thought-provoking conversations. Simon, do you want to introduce today's guest, who is waiting in the wings?

Simon

We are going to be speaking today to Tarn Bright. Tarn, would you tell us who you are and what you do and who you work for, please?

Tarn

I would love to and thank you for having me today. It's an absolute privilege! As shared, my name is Tarn. My actual name is Tania, but it just got shortened years and years ago and it has stuck firmly. I am the Co-CEO for ‘Safe Families’ and ‘Home for Good’ and that is an amalgamation of those two charities. We came together legally in September ‘24 in order to be able to have greater impact, serve the church with one core focus and, ultimately, have one voice to Government.

I'm also an adoptive mum, and I also have teenagers who share our home as well, at any given point in time.

And I try and live my life not just professionally through what I do but so that all of how I operate is through a Kingdom lens. And so, my home life is as important to me as my work life, and vice versa.

Bex

Before we get into all things faith, finance, family life, I would love you to give us a little bit of explanation if anyone hasn't come across ‘Safe Families’ and ‘Home for Good’… what do you guys do?

Tarn

Over 10 years ago now, ‘Home for Good’ started as a campaign across the ‘Evangelical Alliance’, now an org called ‘Thirtyone:eight’ and ‘Care for the Family’. The three of those organisations came together because they identified that there was an ever increasing number of children entering the care system across the United Kingdom and that there were some real justice issues around why that was happening but, more importantly, the justice issue being these children - through no fault of their own - were not being afforded loving, safe and stable homes that allows any child to reach their potential.

And they just knew intuitively that the church should be the solution to this social challenge; and so, they started a campaign called ‘Home for Good’.

And it went so well in terms of grabbing the church's attention for what was not only the need for the church to respond, but the biblical mandate for the church to respond - that we would ‘care for the widows and the orphans’. And so, ‘Home for Good’ became a charity.

And so now, over a decade later, we are embedded in the life of many local churches, changing the culture of the church from the inside out by saying we should be supporting those who foster and adopt or, indeed, could we do it ourselves so that we can be this solution that we referenced earlier, and that we wouldn't have children waiting and waiting and waiting for the right and appropriate love, nurture and care.

And then, ‘Safe Families’, likewise, over a decade ago, recognised that there was this desperate need in this country for children and families to have high quality volunteers placed around them to prevent children entering care.

And oftentimes in our practices around volunteering, we see that just a few hours a week of the right level of non-judgmental volunteerism - volunteering which is around equipping and giving agency to families who are in isolation and overwhelm - giving them the right support so they can find their own solutions and ultimately increase their parenting skills, ultimately find the right decisions for them as a family, seek out the right resource and support.

And we are now finding, 10 years on, that where there is a volunteer, there is over a 90% de-escalation of children entering care, just by one person, attached to a local church, being able to see, hear and help that family belong. And that is just a staggering data set when you realise how much money, not least, that has saved the public purse for children not entering care. It saved over 145 million pounds across the United Kingdom. And that is where the church is alive; and that is where she must still yet step into her calling to care in this way.

Simon

That is incredible, and, straight away, so many questions to start asking you, Tarn. But before we dive into that topic, we want to know more about you, the individual. Could you give us a potted history, really, of your journey of faith? When did you become a Christian? How has that developed over time?

Tarn

This will be a potted history, Simon, because it's one of those deeply potted and multiply potted histories!

I was brought up in a wonderful Christian family in quite a small town but I struggled as a young girl who was (is) very neurodiverse, and this is back in the day, don't forget, Simon - I'm 53 now - no one diagnosed young people with neurodiversity or ADHD then, so I struggled!

I couldn't concentrate, I couldn't focus, I struggled at school, I couldn't understand how people would absorb information from a blackboard or one person's voice, assimilate it, churn it out by putting it onto a piece of paper and get awards via things called ‘essays’. It just was mind-blowingly complicated for my little brain!

So I developed quite self-saboteurial behaviours as a young teenager because I felt so disenfranchised. And that actually, sadly, also included feeling quite disenfranchised from the church because I couldn't perform and behave in the way that other young people were. And very sadly, because there wasn't an understanding of young people and their needs and particularly children with different processing challenges, I found myself very marginalised and with lots of labels thrown on me - you know, ‘bad’, ‘rebellious’! Sadly, in the church, when we're good at being good, we're great, but we're not so good at affirming, and we can be really quite dreadful!

And so, I found myself homeless, in bouts of homelessness, as a teenager, having very sadly - because of the choices I was making - entered into the edge of the sex industry. And I was at points living in homes with much older men, purely for a safe place or safer place to stay for the night in terms of at least a bed that was warm and I had shelter.

I remember so very clearly, as a young teenager - so we're talking 16 now - laying in the bed of a stranger, and as they had got up to go to another part of the house - make a cup of tea or whatever it was - I just stared at the duvet and the overwhelming sense of loneliness was so marked! And even though I had, in effect, walked away from the faith of my family, or the sort of cultural faith, if you can call it that, that I was brought up in, I made an oath and it was: ‘If ever I have agency to help a child or a young person not feel this level of loneliness, then, my gosh, I will take that and I will do all I can, using the resources I have, to try and help this from happening to other young people!’

A few years went on, but I did, remarkably, end up pulling everything back into some sort of semblance of normal, whatever normal might be, and I ended up in a FTSE 100 company, albeit as a photocopying assistant - because I had no GCSEs, I had no A levels, I had nothing. And to say that I didn't have a particularly good CV was an understatement! And I ended up working in a very large company and I was hungry. I was around, for the first time, aspirational people; now, whilst not people of faith, they were people who wanted something in life. They were learners and they were people that could use their brain well. And I grabbed onto this thing!

And I remember so clearly one evening: literally, I would go through executives bins, not for food, but for papers that they had thrown away in order to read them, in order to learn from them, in order that I could get a bit of an advantage, given that I was all day and every day just photocopying everything. And within two years, I'd been made a manager. Within four years I'd been put onto the graduate training scheme, even though I wasn't a graduate. Within five years, I was running one of the largest departments; and within six years, I was travelling the world, negotiating global contracts on behalf of this large, by this point, multinational company.

And the irony was not lost on me!

But then, of course, what happened was - as is always the way with God - there was this moment where I realised that even though I was now materially successful, I felt the Lord knocking and it was, ‘OK, now if I can do this, what more can I do? Come back!’ And I was the classic prodigal daughter story! And I was living with somebody at this stage. I was engaged to another executive, and we'd bought a house and there was a church next door and it was a black majority Pentecostal church. And every Sunday morning, this music would be extraordinary. And I lied to my fiancé, who I was living with, and I used to say, ‘I'm going shopping.’ And I wasn't! I would pop round the corner to this church because I was too embarrassed to say I was going to church because that was just sort of a bit taboo - isn't that weird? And I would go into this church and I would worship and I would cry and I would do business with God.

And I had a really powerful conversion experience, and God called me right back in; and I walked back home - this is after a couple of months of secretly going to church - and I said to the partner, ‘I’ve found God; I've fallen in love with my creator and my maker. I want to come back home in all that that means, and I'm moving out, and you can have the house.’

And I turned my life around within literally a matter of weeks and within a matter of months. I then was at Bible College - and I'd given up my career and went to Bible college - studied for three years, came back, became an Elim Pentecostal minister, did that for five years and then went into the Christian Charity sector over 20 years ago. That's a very potted history!

Bex

That was phenomenal and thank you for being willing to share that.

I feel like within the faith story, we've had a little bit of your work story intertwined, but I'd love to know what led you to the third sector and what has that journey looked like?

Tarn

That has been a remarkable journey. I loved being a pastor, but I recognised very, very early on that I just kept in effect trying to get out the building! I couldn't do chair philosophy and pew debates and flower rotas; and I was just always out in the community and always trying to bridge what does it look like to live and breathe on these streets in London and be church and live a real life amongst people?

It was, I guess, what we would call the incarnational calling that I felt very strongly. And it was a big church - there were a few of us on the team - and my senior pastor was so very lovely and so very blunt, and said, ‘I really think you need to marry, in effect, your business skills, your ability to talk to the third sector and to faith and to multiple different stakeholders in any given community setting - pull all of those together and, actually, I think that's where your calling is. Tarn.’

In effect, it was a light sacking, I guess, really! But, with great love, they prayed me into actually, what I definitely recognise is where the Lord has wanted me.

So, I moved into working for organisations, multiple and varied - from youth organisations through to the Salvation Army, where I ended up as Deputy Director for Research and Development, combining my faith with my commercial skills, negotiating contracts to future proof, in effect, the Salvation Army in terms of drug and alcohol work, homelessness, building new centres for young people and for the elderly - and I loved that!

I then also worked with an organisation, Chapel Street - we set up seven schools in deprived communities, bridging again what it was to be men and women of faith and communities that were forgotten. And I also worked in the refugee sector, bringing over from Canada the Community Sponsorship Resettlement Scheme for Syrian Refugees and loved, again, just seeing how the church can rise in order to be able to meet people at their place of greatest desperation and seeing them become whole through ‘shalom’: the gospel message of ‘shalom’ - it's not just spiritual; it's social, emotional, economic, all in one!

And so, I had quite a lot of experience in the charity sector and by that point I had, in my 30s, decided, probably quite counterculturally, I guess really, as an unmarried person, to rent a very big home in a place called Peckham, which is in southeast London and which had a really big difficulty with postcode gang warfare and with gun and knife crime.

And so, I rented a five bedroomed home in the area and homeless teenagers were placed with me and two of my friends who decided to live this crazy calling. And so, the three of us - me, Heidi and Ed - out of the overflow of our relationship with each other and with God, had an array of homeless young people live with us. For some, that was a wonderful experience; for others, they lasted three weeks because they couldn't handle the intensity of living in a family dynamic; for others, it revolutionised their lives and they went on back into education, employment, training - and I'm still in contact with a number of those young people now, who are now in their 30s.

And the joy of having then been somebody who both worked for charity, for God within Charity, but also lived my life through my home-based scenario as well, has been one of the greatest joys of my life! And then, as a result of that, I had a phone call from social services and they said, ‘There's a 13-month-old; he's on a child protection order; it's looking really difficult; he has been neglected and there's a number of challenges that he's facing. Would you foster this little one?’ And I said, ‘No, I haven't even changed a nappy, I haven't fed a baby a bottle. I mean, this would be survival for this child at best if they came to live with me. I'm sure you do not mean to make this telephone call.’

And they said, ‘We are so short of people to care for children who need emergency foster care, and also short and medium term foster care.

So I said, ‘Yes.’

Now, they also then rang back and said, ‘By the way, there is an, as yet, unborn sibling, and we don't know the condition of this baby - we don't know whether it's male or female, we don't know whether they are abled or disabled because birth mum who is in such a catastrophic situation herself has not ever attended for any antenatal care. Will you foster that baby as well once it's delivered?’

And I said, ‘Yes.’ And so, within a matter of days, both Mack and Charlie arrived – seven-days-old Charlie still withdrawing from drugs and alcohol, and Mack, 13 months old. That was my start of real motherhood at a very deep and intensive level! And I have gone on to adopt them, and they are now 13 and 14.’

So, I sit before you now, today, as an adoptive mum of two beautiful boys with complex needs, but also working full-time as the CEO of ‘Home for Good’ and ‘Safe Families’, because six years ago I was asked to run ‘Home for Good’, and, as I said, we merged in ‘24.

Simon

Wow. And there's so much more I want to dig into, but I want to direct our thoughts towards the topic of finance. Are there any themes, teachings, around what the Bible says about managing our money, our wealth, our possessions that have helped you, that have guided you?

Tarn

I am at heart a very, very simple person. And my faith has been as such. And I have made sure that I have kept my theology really incredibly childlike. Now, the reason I say that is because I was struck very early on in my Christian walk with a very, very, very simple scripture in the Psalms, in Psalm 24.1, which is that ‘The earth is the Lord's and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.’ And that scripture, I know, is one of those nice ‘poeticy’ ones, and it's this picture of just the fact that God is the Oversight, the Creator and the Owner of all. But I took that literally: ‘So, hang on, all of this belongs to God, all of it - none of it is mine!

And, therefore, I have managed somehow to live with this baseline principle that just because I earn a salary or I earn interest from my stocks and shares, or I am gifted something or whatever, it's still not mine. The only thing that has happened is that it's been passed on some sort of loan mechanism from God to me for a period of time, and it's therefore still his; and so, I've got to be really careful what I do with it!

That may sound really simplistic, and I'm sorry if that's not a more insightful theological unpacking, but literally everything belongs to God; and I work backwards from that - and it has just helped me have such a light grip on everything, then, that comes in.

Bex

I just love it! And I think for many of us, certainly myself included, it's easy to have that head knowledge, but it can be hard to do the outworking of that, whereas it sounds like it has impacted your heart in a way that it's just a natural response.

Obviously, you've made quite a lot of countercultural decisions to be radically generous. How have friends, family, the church responded to that? Has there been criticism? How have you navigated those conversations?

Tarn

I think something that the corporate sector really afforded me was some level of financial literacy, particularly when I came into the church and became a minister within the church and certainly my years since - in the charity sector and working with lots of families. What has struck me so profoundly is how unliterate the majority of people are about money. Now, I don't mean this from a theological perspective. I mean this from a very simple, ‘OK, there is good debt and bad debt. There is good debt that means you can gear up in order to make money from the money that is borrowed in order to produce a profit, which means you can service the debt and service it with health. There is bad debt, which is where you put things on a credit card, but those things have no material value and therefore have no opportunity to either accrue interest or value, and therefore it is bad debt.’

Children are not taught this! Your average family in the United Kingdom is not taught this, even down to what I would call an understanding of mortgages, interest rates - just really simple financial mechanisms in order to be able to be financially safe. And if it wasn't for my time in business, I wouldn't have learned those things either.

I think, actually, I've not come across people being critical of my approach. I think, if anything, there's been this sense of transfer of knowledge because I have been mortified as to what lack of understanding there is - how actually the church isn't great at teaching this at a baseline level. Because the more financially we are able to support ourselves and others, the more Kingdom could be advanced. So, for me, I'm, like, we should be teaching this stuff as part of our Bible studies, let alone just having this in the school curriculum - this is fundamental.

So, again, it's a bit of a simple answer, but I just think we need more financial literacy in this country.

Simon

And the simple answers often are great because people can get hold of them. Giving people too complex an answer can make it unachievable, unobtainable.

So I'm hearing from you, Tarn, you've got a personal mandate: the earth is the Lord's and everything in it; he's giving it you to steward, to do with what he wants you to do.

Is there a different weight of financial responsibility when there are other people's salaries and there are taxes to pay and there's cash flow planning for the future? Or can you apply the same things just in a corporate sense, in a charity sense, not just in a personal or family sense?

Tarn

I think that is just a very, very insightful question, because the truth of the matter Is I am responsible. Yes, of course, first to God, but I am responsible to something called the Charities Commission. In so running this charity, my memorandum and articles that I must adhere to tell me that I have to utilise money to its absolute maximum efficiency.

So, I may want to operate with a scriptural mandate of giving away with a level of generosity that to others would look foolish, but to me might be, ‘Actually, no, I am sacrificially sowing into the ministry of another with what comes into the charity, because I believe that unity will command a blessing and that will ultimately ensure that there is spiritual cover, if we can call it that, over the charity for which I'm responsible.’

Now, the truth of the matter is I can't do that because I can't just take X percent of my organisational turnover and invest it into something that doesn't advance the charitable aims of ‘Home for Good’ or ‘Safe Families’.

And I do, in all honesty, find that difficult at times. But my Co-CEO is the finance queen - she is the spreadsheet guru and she can spot a cell in a spreadsheet that's out with a glance.

Simon

My kind of person! Love it!

Tarn

Oh, remarkable!

But what I will say is that both of us together have got such a strong set of values around how we want to steward the money that we will absolutely ensure that the money goes as far as possible within the charity regulations that we have to work alongside.

But it's still interesting, though, helping people understand that the charity doesn't have endless funds; it itself is fundraising. But, understandably, people come to us and they say, ‘I'd like another pay rise, please. You know, cost of living is difficult,’ or whatever it might be.

And it's not that we don't have a heart to want to pay our employees as much as we possibly can, but it costs us, as a charity, £50,000 to do a 1% increase on a salary line. If we were to do it generically across our employees, the reality is that that, in and of itself, is at least two jobs.

So when I get cheques in from Mr and Mrs Nucky for £57.50, because they've chosen for their silver wedding reception to raise money for us, instead of having gifts, I look at that cheque and I write them a thank you letter, and I think, ‘My gosh, I daredn't get in a taxi tonight. I shall walk to that venue,’ because Mr and Mrs Nucky have just sacrificed their presents for me and this charity, right? But, again, that's a really good way that I can keep high levels of integrity as to the stewardship within this.

But you're right: we have to fundraise millions every year to not only pay our staff, but to do the work that we are called to do. And the reality is that my job is largely fundraising now.

And every time where we press ‘send’ on the payroll, at the end of every month, there's about a five second relief until the whole thing starts all over again - every month, every month.

And praise God, we're able to do it and we're OK, but there's some difficult decisions ahead as we speak, because a major donor has had to pull back because their business hasn't done well and a grant wasn't awarded because they've had so many applications, they're reducing the amount they're giving to each charity.

It's not that God's not blessing us, it's not that he's not got us, but it is incredibly stressful when you've got not only a constituency of families across the United Kingdom who are reliant on these services, and I've also got staff who I really want to honour. And that does mean that there is a certain pressure that can become difficult.

So, I've got to be really careful that it doesn't become a distraction as opposed to a blessing being asked to do what I'm doing. And so, I always try and keep it in perspective too - that it's all God's!

Bex

Speaking of different perspectives, I imagine one of the things that keeps you going and makes it all worthwhile is the impact that you have as this combined two charities and the work you're doing. What stories have you heard recently? What has filled your tank and made you excited about your work?

Tarn

Oh, gosh, so many. We have this piece of software called ‘Slack’, and it's basically sort of like an intranet. And I have a pathological hatred of ‘Slack’ because it just feels like a Tardis of data and information that I can't make head nor tail of.

But we have this channel on there called ‘Stories of Hope’, and I singularly go into the ‘Stories of Hope’ channel, right, because it's the place whereby I just get fed and encouraged and will always go to before I have a meeting with a parliamentarian or a major donor or whatever, because they are endless in the descriptors of where the church is standing up for what she believes in, as opposed to what she's against, and where the people - the ecclesia, the body - are doing what they are doing with such joy and flair that people's lives are being changed.

And we have so many stories, but two I can think of: a young woman who was imprisoned in her country overseas and she was a political prisoner and she managed to escape and managed to make her way over to the United Kingdom. Very, very sadly, she had been in a very, very abusive set of situations back in her home country and female genital mutilation had sadly happened to her and she landed in the UK and due to a difficult situation, fell pregnant. And because of FGM, she had a very painful pregnancy. By the time she had given birth, she was isolated, lonely, struggling with the English language and really didn't know what to do.

And we placed a volunteer around her and now, some months later, she's reporting that she is well connected, she's loved, the toddler is flourishing, she has a job, she has housing, her English is incredible.

Another story: a lady (married), very difficult situation in that she was very disabled, in a wheelchair - a wheelchair user - and her condition was getting worse and worse, and her main carer was her husband. They have three children, and he was arrested, convicted and sent to prison for domestic abuse. The challenge, of course, with that is that she was then left on her own.

Now you might say, ‘Well, isn't that great? She's no longer having to deal with that abuse.’ But I can also tell you that the problems increase, but in a different way, because she had nobody to care for her and they were on a fourth floor flat and she's a wheelchair user.

And placing one volunteer around her who could advocate for her housing needs, who could connect her to a group of people who could help just bring some carers in - just to help with some very practical things like shopping - revolutionised this lady and her children's life. She's now in a ground floor flat with accessible housing, with a team of people who she loves at a local church - because of this volunteer. And she is going from strength to strength and has never ever had the courage to do the things that she's now doing.

Listen, those are two stories just because of two people who volunteered!

And then there's multiple stories of those who fostered and adopted and who are caring for teenagers through supported lodgings. And just one story of a remarkable young couple who decided for them it was right. (It's not for everybody, right?) But they wanted adoption as their plan A and they had a really good background in terms of mental health background and nurse and teaching background, so they were well able to take on some children with some trauma.

Anyway, they adopted a sibling group of five in order to keep five children together because it's very, very common that children who enter into the care system, if they have siblings, will all be split up because there are very few homes that just from a space perspective, will be able to have a large sibling group.

So those siblings now have the joy of not only growing up with a family, but growing up with a family within a family, just as my two boys are still obviously together and call themselves their ‘family within a family’.

Those are the sorts of stories that we hear all day, every day, across this remarkable privilege that we get to offer our meagre gifts to. And it's the church who I always want to constantly big up, because it's the people of the church, and that's who we represent.

Simon

So, Tarn, I want to pose two questions as we come into land here. So, I’m thinking about my listeners: one group of listeners might be recognising a need that they have, that their wider family have, or they know somebody who has - and they're realising there is support out there. So, question one will be, ‘How could they maybe get help from ‘Home for Good’ and ‘Safe Families’?

And then question two is for those listeners who are thinking, ‘This is such good work; I'm passionate about this too, and looking for a place to support.’ How can they get involved to help the outworking of all the great work that you do?

Those who might need your help and those who want to support your help - where do they go?

Tarn

In the best sense possible, there's one place, and that is go to the website and the number is on the website as well. Maybe if you could put a link in on the podcast?

Simon

Absolutely.

Tarn

We always say to people, ‘Our job is to give you as much agency as possible in order that you solve the challenges that are in your life.’ And we will come alongside and do all we can to support and navigate that. The way that they can reach out is via the organisational number. They will come to an inquiry team who would love just to talk through what their needs are. And then, hopefully, we might have a contract, in the area in which they live, with the local authority. And then, we can do a broad number of things in terms of connecting them to a volunteer and also just seeing what else the local authority might be able to do for them.

But, likewise, it's the same approach as well if there is something you've heard and you've thought, ‘I can either volunteer a few hours of my time a week or a month in order to support a family, either practically in prayer, or simply coming alongside to sit and have a coffee with somebody’, or ‘Do you know what? I've been thinking about fostering or even adoption for a long time and I'm going to take the plunge and at least just make an enquiry.’

There's no obligation. Anybody can ring our enquiry line and simply have a chat with a highly trained social worker and talk through with them what it might look like. Maybe this is the time for them to explore. We would love that, and our team will triage according to the request, and we will make sure that people are placed in the best possible hands to work through what we can do to help come alongside.

Bex

Just so encouraging! And I don't know about anyone else listening to this, but I feel challenged. I feel compelled into action and I also feel like I want to find out more immediately.

We are coming to the end of our conversation, but Tarn, is there anything you want to share with our listeners before we wrap things up?

Tarn

I would probably just say, ‘Don't count yourself out,’ or think, ‘I've got nothing really to give.’

I am the first to look back on my life and my earlier start and would have been somebody to rule myself out as opposed to throw myself in.

And I have seen the Lord do such miraculous things in my life and, having gone from somebody with very low self-esteem and with very little understanding as to how I could be of any use whatsoever, I find that the Lord has squeezed every ounce of gifting and use out of me that he possibly could.

And so, anybody who feels as though they would love to explore what it is to use what the Lord has got within them, too, then we would love to be the people that would encourage that within them. So, count yourself in and not out!

Simon

Tarn, our prayer for you would be that God would continue to squeeze every drop of enthusiasm and passion and faith and heart that you have for families, for young people, for those in need.

Thank you so, so much! Our blessings go with you!

Tarn

Wonderful! Thank you! I really enjoyed that!

Simon

But, for now, until we return, it is a farewell from me.

Bex

Farewell, and a reminder to check the show notes to find the ‘Safe Families’, ‘Home for Good’ website,

Tarn

And farewell from me, and God Bless!

Bex

That's it for this episode of ‘Where Your Treasure Is…’

Simon

Thanks for listening. Let's keep learning to be good stewards of all we've been given.

Bex

See you next time.