APPREHENSIVE children joining a foster family for the first time are to get a helping hand to make the difficult transition.

Bolton graphics student Carol Allison has found time in her busy timetable to design a special diary to help foster children settle into their temporary homes.

Now Carol is one of six Bolton Institute students to win an award for community projects to help the town.

The mum-of-one volunteered when local homeless group Bypass asked BIHE students if they would help them compile the booklet.

Bypass found many children found it traumatic when they joined a strange foster family for the first time and asked young people what extra could be done to help them settle in.

The resulting diary will make the transition easier by providing basic information about the foster child and the family, which is not not normally considered essential.

It will list a number of questions that the foster family and the child fill in together so they can get to understand one another.

Children who have been in foster homes have helped compile the questions, which cover such basic information such as "What time is tea?" and "How will I get to school?".

Carol said: "It's been hard work but I have a little girl of two and, when I heard about these children, it really tugged my heart strings".

Several sources, including a BIHE arts grant of £500, have been used to fund the Bypass diaries.

They will be given to the 200-plus Bolton children fostered every year and will also include useful contacts independent of social social services in case children have problems with their foster family.

The arts grants will also help the other five BIHE students to fund award-winning community projects. Allen Fielding will put on an independent exhibition for students and local artists, Siobhan Harvey will compile a book of poems, Diane Lee will create a catalogue showing the work of graduates, Alan-Milton White will produce a magazine devoted to the work of creative writing students, and Neil Fraser will work with pupils from Withins school on an arts project.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.