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 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.

In 2008 after working with looked after children in the NHS she became a foster carer, specialising in adolescence, including multiple placement breakdowns, step down from residential, adoption breakdowns, young people’s 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 joined the IWGB, a small independent union, and chaired the newly set up foster carer’s branch. 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, divisions in the union and recognising due to the very specific nature of the foster carers role that they needed their own dedicated representation.

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 since she has worked as special advisor to the National Union of Professional Foster Carers.

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