The Rt Revd John Pritchard, Bishop of Oxford:

The other night I went to a fundraising dinner. Nothing unusual I suppose – there are lots of these dinners going on all the time as charities try to find new sources of funds when times are tough.

But two things made this event stand out. One was that it was held in the Ashmolean which turns out to be a superb venue for such a dinner, surrounded as we were by ancient statues looking down on us severely.

The other memorable thing was the nature of the charity’s work.

Parents and Children Together (PACT) focuses mainly on adoption and fostering, and nothing is more compelling than the story of a lonely, lost and possibly damaged child being given a second chance in a new home.

We heard of some heart-rending situations where children had lived in fear and misery even as tiny, innocent little people, but how they gradually and painfully learned to trust again when they were placed with a loving family where they were valued and treated consistently.

PACT placed 76 children in adoptive families last year, more than any other independent adoption agency in the country. And whereas the failure rate for such adoptions across the UK is 25 per cent, the failure rate with PACT is less than one per cent.

I was shocked to hear that countrywide there are 6,000 children awaiting a loving home. The Government has been putting a lot of emphasis on the need to find adoptive families and the churches have been engaging afresh with this pressing need. In one city a local Christian leader set out to find the 40 adopter families that the city needed, and returned to the council a short time later with 41 names. It’s possible.

Here’s another startling statistic from the Cass Business School: every extra family approved for adoption adds over £1m of social and economic value to society. I’ve no idea how they work that out. I just report it.

But more important to me is the infinite value of the individual life of a child, made in the image of God, and made to flourish. I find that my four small grandchildren draw out of me a tenderness and protectiveness I had almost forgotten. These are precious lives and deserve the very best that any society can provide. If they are damaged by adult neglect or abuse we have to pull out all the stops to repair that damage and love them into trusting the adult world again.

PACT has a special therapeutic service for those children who have the most difficulty in coping with their past. They promise their PACT families that they will never leave them without support.

PACT was started by a predecessor of mine as Bishop of Oxford just over a hundred years ago. It started with a woman on a bicycle. Now it’s a major provider of hope for children in need and prospective parents who would like to foster or adopt.

Spread the word. There could be a prospective adopter family near you.