FOSTER Care Fortnight - co-ordinated by national charity the Fostering Network - begins next Monday.

First Bus Southampton will be parking up outside the Civic Centre at midday to help the city council launch its local initiative and drive home public understanding about fostering.

Fostering is a way of offering children and young people a home while their own parents are unable to look after them.

It is often a temporary arrangement and many fostered children want to return to their families.

Children who cannot return home, but want to stay in touch with their own families, often live with a long-term foster carer.

Anyone can apply to be a foster carer as long as they have what it takes to care for children separated from their own families.

There is no age limit to being a foster mum or dad.

Foster carers don't need to be married. You can be single, lesbian or gay or living together to foster.

Foster carers are needed from all ethnic backgrounds.

People with disabilities can foster.

You don't need to own your own home, have plenty of cash or work - but you must have warmth and enthusiasm.

Foster care manager Leigh Clarke said: "There are roughly 250 children in Southampton living in foster care.

"Even though there are 200 foster carers registered with social services, this is not enough - 80 more are desperately needed."