Sarah Anderson

Early life

Sarah Jane Anderson was born in Putney, London on 22nd July 1958. Her parents were entrepreneurs and business owners in the London art world, clients included global galleries and museums, including the Tate, Tate Britain, V&A, Smithsonian, the Louvre, plus institutions such as Buckingham Palace and prominent international artists.

In 1973 they won the Duke of Edinburgh’s Design Award. Anderson’s younger sister is Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Wales.

Anderson was educated at Lady Margaret School, Parsons Green, the London College of Printing followed by Bath Academy of Art and then joined the family business. After changing direction in 2002 she studied at Roehampton University gaining a degree in counselling psychotherapy, following this she took up a post specialising in adolescent mental health in the NHS.

Around 2008 after working with looked after children in the NHS she focused on becoming a foster carer, she specialises in adolescents in foster care, including multiple placement breakdowns, step down from residential and adolescent mental health. The move to foster care led her to campaign for foster carers rights and status, she says

After working on the committee of her in-house fostering association Anderson felt there was a need for more robust independent representation and change for foster carers. In 2016 she became Chair of the IWGB’s new foster care workers branch (Independent workers of Great Britain). She remained in the post for 3 years developing it into the largest branch of the union.

Anderson left the IWGB citing her unhappiness with the political direction and divisions in the union, the burnout, overwork and treatment-experienced by some volunteers and employees.

She also states she had concerns over the use of union and branch funds and the level of support afforded to foster carers. She states:

Anderson developed other services for foster carers up until the landmark ruling NUPFC v The Certification Office in spring of 2021 at the Court of Appeal but has since focused on her work as special advisor to the National Union of Professional Foster Carers (NUPFC).

In 2021 Anderson developed a free community resource, FosterWiki.com, which launched in the October of that year. It is a free Wikipedia style platform for foster carers, the wider fostering industry, community and the 3rd sector, its the only resource of its kind within the UK to be compiled by experts by experience in the field of foster caring and a comprehensive compilation of resources, guides, legislation and policy.