What is fostering?

Being a Foster Care Professional is about providing shelter, safety and support to a young person in temporary need of a home, and creating an environment in which they can develop and flourish. It is also an important, sometimes challenging but ultimately very rewarding career. Fostering means 'to promote the growth or development of' and a foster carer provides this important service to young people on behalf of the Local Authority that is ultimately responsible for their welfare. Foster care agencies such as Family Foster Care work between Local Authorities and foster carers to help make each foster care placement a success. In recognition of the important service they provide Foster Care Professionals receive an allowance which enables them to provide the best possible level of ongoing care. There are many different types of fostering, and many Foster Care Professionals choose to specialise in one or two types.

What fostering is not

Unlike adoption or parenting your own children, you're not on your own as a foster carer. You are a vital member of a team of welfare professionals responsible for looking after the young person or young people in your care. Of course, as a Foster Care Professional, the responsibility of providing a loving and caring home is ultimately yours, but we all work closely together to map out a Care Plan for each individual child. We make the difficult decisions about boundaries, what is and what isn't acceptable behaviour, consequences of breaking house rules and how the young person participates in family life together. We tackle problems and work out solutions together. To us, 'family' is another word for team, and every member of the family, including the young person or people being cared for, is involved in planning how to make each placement as happy and successful as possible.

Types of fostering

Children may need to be cared for by a foster family for an enormously wide range of reasons, and this means that many different types of foster care arrangements are needed. Fostering is not always about offering one child a long term home and there is always the opportunity for Foster Care Professionals to provide a blend of different types of foster care to fit in with their lifestyle.

Long term foster care

With long term foster care the young person or young people are expected to need to be with their foster family indefinitely but for at least 2 years, and sometimes until they reach adulthood. In these cases, the child or children become very much part of the foster family, although they may still have contact with their birth family. The foster child is as involved in family life as any other member of the household, including going on holiday, attending family celebrations and so on.

Short term foster care

As with long term foster care the length of time that the young person is expected to need to be with their foster family is indefinite. However, with short-term fostering the child is expected to stay with the foster family for anything from a few days to up to 2 years. Although providing short-term care can perhaps be more challenging, many Foster Care Professionals prefer this kind of foster care as they get the satisfaction of getting to know and helping many more young people.

Bridging placements

Sometimes a young person will need a 'bridging placement'. This means that they need short term foster care during a transitional period. This may be before joining their adoptive family or long term foster carers, or during the difficult years as they transition into adulthood and becoming fully independent. Often this type of foster care requires some specialist training as the role of the Foster Care Professional is not only to provide them with a safe, nurturing home during a difficult and confusing time, but also to help prepare them for what lies ahead.

Emergency foster care

There are a great many reasons why young people can suddenly find themselves in need of temporary shelter at very short notice. Many Foster Care Professionals will provide emergency foster care because they know this is a vitally important emergency service. In most cases young people requiring emergency foster care will be confused and frightened by the circumstances they find themselves in, and possibly traumatised by the events leading up to them. Emergency foster care is about providing these children with a sense of stability and safety at a time when the rest of their world has been turned upside down.

Who can be a foster carer

There are as many different types of foster carers as there are children in care. Foster Care Professionals can be married, single, divorced or living in a same-sex partnership; they can be experienced parents or first-timers; in the provision of foster care, every kind of cultural, racial and social background is as valued and respected as the next. You do not need to be a home owner, nor do you have to have a minimum monthly income. What matters to us is your ability to provide a safe and supportive home to a child who, for whatever reason, is temporarily separated from their family.

Of course there are some fundamental requirements that a foster carer needs to meet in order to be able to provide a safe and supportive home for a young person or people. These requirements include the foster carer's home being able to comfortably accommodate all who live there, and in most instances this means providing a separate bedroom for each fostered child. The very best way to find out if you could foster is to call us on 07761 830 389 at any time for an informal chat with our lead social workers Judith or Karen. One of our highly experienced team will be able to help you determine whether you have the potential to be a Foster Care Professional.

What about Qualifications?

You do not need any special qualifications to apply to become a foster carer. What we look for are the special qualities that would make you a good foster carer. We then provide all the training you need to help you develop into a Foster Care Professional. Kindness, understanding and a real desire to help young people grow and flourish are the qualities we most value - in fact all the same qualities as being a good parent, guardian or role model.

Fostering is a caring profession, and Family Foster Care respects carers' personal development as much as the children's we find foster care placements for. We are committed to providing training, individual skills development programs and as much support as necessary to guide prospective carers along the path to becoming Foster Care Professionals.

What's Involved in Becoming a Foster Carer?

Becoming a Foster Care Professional is a big step, but we help and advise applicants every step of the way. The process involves a series of stages from preliminary 'fact finding' and assessment meetings to the formal application and final assessments. Obviously the application process is intensive because vulnerable young peoples' lives and futures are at stake. It typically takes between 3 to 6 months to become fully approved, and we work hard to keep applicants informed and involved at every step.

Who is Involved?

Although deciding to foster is a very personal decision, it doesn't just involve you. Fostering directly involves every member of your family, and will have some impact on your extended family and even friends too. Everybody you call family or who you rely on needs to be fully supportive of your decision, because really, they are part of the team too. The application and assessment process must involve every member of the extended foster family to some extent because for fostering to succeed everyone's sense of stability, security and happiness matters.

What to expect

The one thing most prospective foster carers are most apprehensive about is how they can be sure if the foster child will fit in with their family, and what happens if they don't. Before embarking upon becoming a foster carer, it helps to know what to expect, both from us, the foster care agency, and from the young people in need of foster care. In this section you can find out a little more about typical foster care placements and about our matching process. Reading through the blogs and testimonials will also help you to get an idea of what to expect from the fostering experience.

The Matching Process

One of the keys to successful fostering for both young people and carers is closely matching the needs of the young person with an appropriately skilled and compatible carer. For Family Foster Care the matching process is central to achieving positive outcomes. During the application process prospective carers have the opportunity to agree with their case worker the type of child that would thrive best under their care, and this includes specifying age range, gender, ethnicity and religion if these are important to the individual carer. We always try to place children in homes that are culturally as similar as possible to their own family which helps to minimise the disruption and alleviate the young person's sense of dislocation as far as possible. Where possible we offer every child an introductory period to a proposed foster carer so that he or she has the opportunity to give their view too.

Actively Involving Young People and Carers Alike

Although ultimately it is the Local Authorities that decide wither a placement goes ahead or not, we ensure that both the prospective foster carer and the child is actively involved in the matching process. We evaluate all the information received about the young person and best matches are achieved by sharing this information between everyone involved - the child, their family, the proposed foster carers, their families and any other children in placement and their social workers. Foster carers always have the opportunity to decide whether they want to take a child into their family home or not, and their opinions, preferences and decisions are always respected.

Our ethical approach to the matching process can mean that finding the right placement for each carer may sometimes take a little longer, but in our opinion this is a small price to pay in the interest of ensuring we have contented carers and happy cared for children.

About Young People in Foster Care

Young people may be in need of a foster home for all kinds of reasons, such as a sole parent being admitted to hospital through to custody disputes or more serious family problems. What unites them all is that they are separated from their parents and sometimes their siblings until their home circumstances change. Many may have been taken into care at short notice or as the result of a traumatic event or series of events. Some may never have known what it is like to live in and contribute positively to a family unit. Almost all of the young people requiring foster care will be feeling confused, angry, betrayed, hurt, insecure or uncertain about their future. And as with all children, negative emotions can lead to challenging behaviour. There are very many more teenagers than infants requiring foster homes, and typically it is boys more than girls that struggle the most to find secure long-term homes.

Hard Work But Immensely Rewarding

Family Foster Care believe it is important for prospective foster carers to know what to expect from foster placements so that they do not have a rose-tinted view of life as a Foster Care Professional. However, as you will no doubt read in our blogs and testimonials, often it is the simplest things like sharing a family meal, or going along to watch them play in a football match that can bring such joy to these young peoples' lives. Most Family Foster Care Professionals say that they feel the opportunity to improve young peoples' lives is a privilege and an immensely rewarding experience that far outweighs the hard work and challenges.

What About Training?

Family Foster Care sets itself apart from other agencies through its commitment to providing first-class training and ongoing skills development programs for its Foster Care Professionals. There are two main types of training - set training and optional training - covering an enormously wide range of subject matter and skills. We know that some prospective carers are daunted by the idea of 'going back to school' so we encourage you to get in touch with us at any time on 07761 830 389 to discuss this aspect and to put your mind to rest.

Set Training

Carers need to undertake some set training before becoming an approved Foster Care Professional. The training courses are all conducted in-house by our expert welfare training and education staff. Most courses are held in groups but 1-1 sessions can be arranged where necessary. Set training covers basics such as health and safety, understanding the role of the foster carer, communication and other subjects essential to providing an acceptable level of foster care. Most prospective foster carers find the set training a fascinating and rewarding part of the process, and really value Family Foster Care's investment into their personal and professional development.

Optional Training

Part of our commitment to foster carers is to help them become expert Foster Care Professionals. We work together with carers to draw up individual self-development training plans which will help to acquire the skills necessary to achieve their career goals. Prior to any placement Foster Care Professionals are offered any training necessary for them to be able to meet the needs of the particular young person or people, and carers are actively encouraged to continue to update and develop their skills. Such is Family Foster Care's commitment and dedication to becoming a centre of excellence for fostering training we even train foster carers for Local Authorities or other agencies.

In parallel to your fostering training, you will also receive training in Restorative Parenting developed by our Psychologist and delivered across our schools, residential homes and foster teams. In partnership with the Pillars of Parenting, you will receive copies of the published material on our "authentic warmth" model of child care and an introductory days training from one of our Chartered Child Psychologists alongside other care staff as part of a group of Foster carers. This is a key session as it underpins the ongoing support you will receive from our clinical team and the training plan that will lead to a CertEd in   Therapeutic Child Care. The training and skills the carers receiver are what underpin the loving environment that the young person experiences. 

What About Support?

 

 

 

 

We pride ourselves on providing an exceptional level and quality of support to our Foster Care Professionals. With a combined experience of over 40 years in the provision of child welfare services we have become experts in understanding what is needed for both carers and cared for children to get the best possible outcomes from fostering. We help our carers to meet best practice standards through a comprehensive range of personalized and local support, including:

 

 

 

 

·         Monthly social work supervision (as a minimum)

·         24/7 telephone support

·         Internal/external training opportunities

·         Representation at all child care reviews and conferences

·         Psychological support and family counselling

·         Peer support

·         Social events

·         Respite care (holiday cover) arrangements

·         Pension contributions

·         Private health care package

·         Support with children work force development group

·         Financial reports and support with carers self assessment tax form

Above all we provide a friendly, personalised and consistent support system to our foster carers from regional offices which are staffed by dedicated employees with local knowledge and expertise.

So What's the Next Step?

By now you may have decided that fostering is definitely for you and you want to go ahead and get the application process started. Or like most people you're interested but probably still have lots of questions. Wherever you are in your decision making process the next step is to contact us for an informal and confidential chat. We'll aim to answer more of your questions and hopefully arrange a home visit for you from one of our experienced and knowledgeable case workers so you can talk everything over in person.

Call us now on 07761 830 389

Email us at familyfostercare@halliwellhomes.co.uk

Or why not download an application form here