Information for Potential Carers

Are you considering becoming a foster carer? If so, you've probably got a lot of questions, this page is an attempt to answer those questions and help you decide whether you are ready for the challenges and rewards of foster care.  

About Fostering and the Team

Like all social care, fostering has become a more recognised and valued role in recent years. Experience has shown that providing a stable family environment to children, whose own family cannot care for them, is the best way of helping them achieve success and stability in the longer term.

Most social care for children involves foster care. Despite what we hear in the media about children in care fostering is an extremely effective way  to help children and young people thrive in a balanced and nurturing family environment.

Here’s a list of qualities, which you will need to demonstrate if you are serious
about becoming a foster carer:

Empathy – the ability to understand what it feels like for someone else, is crucial. Listening skills – you will require these in abundance to understand the child in your care, and to be able to help and guide them through the challenges they face.

Nurturing – to be able to nurture another person is key, to encourage them to do what’s best for them and to ensure that they thrive in the home environment that you are providing for them and in other environments too, such as school.

Sound advice and judgment – all children in care face the trauma of being away from their original family but many also experience the trauma of foster placements failing, for a variety of reasons. Fear of failure or rejection can explain why many children ‘push the boundaries’ as soon as they arrive! It’s important to understand why a child might behave in these ways. It’s also important that you can help a child or young person to learn to behave in a way that’s in their best interests in the longer term.

Strong family support – introducing a foster child into your family life will undoubtedly challenge your home life as you know it. Fostering cannot be carried out in isolation; you need to be an effective team to do the job well.

Safety and stability – a substantial part of fostering is to offer a safe, nurturing environment, which is why the physical and emotional attributes of your family life are taken into consideration – from the size
and space you have available, to your personal attributes, as well as other aspects of safety, such as the people who are regular visitors to your home, are all key considerations when assessing your
suitability to foster.

An open minded attitude – bringing children in care into your home is a challenge. Some children have been abused, whether physically, emotionally or sexually, this can make their behaviour very challenging indeed. That’s why we choose foster carers who are open-minded, non-judgmental, fair and tolerant, as it’s important for them not to be phased in difficult situations.

Foster carers come from all walks of life and they can be single parents or couples, some with their own children and others without (although experience of raising your own children will prove invaluable). Some foster carers will stay at home to look after their own children or their foster children, whereas others
will go to work.

How does the Approval Process Work?

In order to become a foster carer, there’s a substantial approval process that you will need to go through, which is a necessary part of ensuring that children are placed with suitable, caring families, to meet their needs. Whilst it’s our intention to make the whole process of approving you as a foster carer, as easy and speedy as possible, some parts of the overall assessment process are outside of our control, so the pace is dictated not by us but instead by other agencies.

Even foster carers who already have experience need to be reassessed if say, they want to register with a new agency. Typically, you can expect this process to take around six months but this can be shorter or longer than this.

The approval process
Applicants who wish to foster are subject to a substantial approval process. Here’s what you can typically expect:
Initial visit – from the moment you register your interest with us, one of our social workers will arrange an initial visit to see you, to find out more about you and your family and to check the suitability of your home environment.
If both parties wish to proceed, the next stages are:
CRB (criminal records bureau) – checks are conducted on everyone who works with children and young people. They involve cross referencing your details and the details of other adults who are very regular visitors to your home, against potential information held on the PNC (police national computer), including convictions, cautions, reprimands and warnings. In the case of foster carers, an ‘enhanced’ level of check is made, as you will be in contact with vulnerable children, therefore, a more detailed check is required. These usually take between one and four months to complete and so the process is begun as soon as we believe you are suitable to be a foster carer.
Medical checks – it’s a duty for us to ensure that you have no medical conditions which will impede your ability to care for children. This involves a visit to your GP in order to complete a medical questionnaire, and carry out a basic medical examination. Your GP’s findings are then forwarded to our medical adviser for confirmation.
Local authority checks – your permission is sought to enable checks to be undertaken against the Child Protection Register. Checks will also be carried out in other Local Authorities where you have lived. Once these checks have been successfully completed, the next steps are:
You attend an initial training course,
called ‘Skills to Foster’ – there are six parts to this course, usually broken up into two modules held over three Saturdays. It’s very important if you have a partner, that both of you attend this course.
Home visits and interviews – A social worker from Integrated Care will carry out several visits to chat to you, your partner and children, in order to establish your attitudes and ideas, your strengths and skills, as well as highlighting areas for potential training. This in depth process is important for us to establish whether you and your family can cope with the challenges that a foster child will undoubtedly present, and establish your preference for placements.
Once you have satisfactorily completed these stages, the next stage is:

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What Support can I expect from Integrated Care?

Our aim is to provide professional, effective and responsive support to our foster carers. This way,
they can be assured they will always get the expertise and guidance when they need it. In addition, we place a lot of emphasis on training and development for our foster carers.

We’ve engaged notable experts onto our roster to provide training, to help our foster carers build and develop their skills. We’re also committed to getting experienced foster carers involved in training newer foster carers – there’s nothing like first-hand experience to help you on your way.

We realise that improving the professionalism of our foster carers is fundamental to our success and that’s why we are aiming to provide more development and training opportunities in the future. Our relationship with you is a partnership, which is why it’s important you are fully signed up to the
missions and values that are central to our overall objectives.

Regular and occasional support

In addition to the necessary training to support your transition to becoming a foster care professional, we also aim to provide some more light-hearted support opportunities.
These include foster carer support groups – where foster carers get together with their Integrated Care social workers to enjoy the company of other foster carers – as well as offering you a chance to air your views and feedback your experiences to us. From time to time, there are social events, such as a summer day out or a Christmas meal, where groups come together to network with other foster carers, staff and managers from Integrated Care. Whilst these are fun occasions, they’re also an important part of getting to know other, and for foster carers, Integrated Care staff to share your experiences of fostering.

24/7 support
Every foster carer will have times when they need the support of an experienced professional to talk to. That’s why we offer a 24-hour support service, where you can speak to one of our social workers to discuss your concerns.

Supervision
Supervision is a regular feature of being a foster carer. The social worker assigned to your case will visit you at least once a month, or if the placement is proving to be particularly difficult.

Inter-agency support
Integrated Care will also support you when you need to deal with other agencies – in order to get the best for your foster child. This will involve your supervising social worker attending meetings with you, to establish health and educational support for the child.

Foster Carers Talking

The approval process
'Quite hard going through this – in terms of it included things about your life. I’m not an emotional person but this really flicks things up, so I didn’t enjoy this too much, but otherwise it was ok. It took about 6 months but I know this can take longer 'DS

'We were given a good understanding of what was required, it wasn’t daunting in anyway and we were showed and told everything we needed to do' DC

'Our approval process took quite a long time but this was not due to the fault of the agency, it was complicated by the fact that I was working at the time, so it took a bit longer and the CRB checks took a long time as well' LV

'The approval process was quite quick. There are a lot of checks that need to be carried out as part of your approval process. Interestingly, as they need to delve into your past in some detail, it’s often best if you have had challenges in life and how you’ve come through these, as these can be great preparation for working with children in care VA

Placements
'Placements are very well matched, which is why you probably have to wait a little longer than you would in some other agencies' DC

'I’ve had two placements with Integrated Care. The first was for respite and the second is still with us now. Support has been fantastic – very good social worker. Matching wasn’t so great with the first children, in terms of culture, but this was just for respite, so not a problem. But the second one was very sensitively placed – a really good long term plan was worked out'. JD

'Fostering is constantly a learning curve,depending on who you foster, you can learn about or be involved in anything from gene therapy, Makerton techniques, portage, through to young offenders, mental health and magistrate courts to police stations! It really does cover a wide range of areas' LL

Family life
'To see fostered children gel with the family is great. Extended family have been good too. Grandma’s birthday for instance – cooking a birthday cake for the relatives'! DS

'When my own children see one of our foster children as say, ‘a big sister’, I think it shows how well they fit into the family. There are benefits all round. Children who live with us for a short or longer stay get the benefit of a normal family life and we get to enjoy them – and we learn from them too. You need to have bags of patience because children will always test you – but this is all part of the learning curve DC

'I have an 11 year old daughter and I’d say that fostering has really opened her eyes and broadened her horizons. Being around children with learning difficulties means that she’s not threatened or uncomfortable with such children. Some children might potentially find this scary. I’m a single parent, so fostering enables me to be around and work at the times that I need to. It’s very rewarding, which may sound strange as it can be challenging. Also there’s been an impact on my extended family, who are very inclusive LL

Training and support
'They are very supportive – there’s always someone at the end of a phone. Problems lessen when you speak to someone else. There’s 24/7 cover to support you. Training is good but you’ve got to learn on the job – you're constantly learning all the time DS

'I’m now very impressed with the people delivering the training and what is available. We have someone who’s known in the childcare sector and he’s very good. I’m just starting the new foster carer training which I’m really looking forward to'. LL

'Training and development has been particularly good and I’ve really enjoyed it in the last year. Lots of stuff has been introduced, and its all good, positive and a real benefit ' LV

'The support network is good, very good – you always get support from a human being – not a ‘robotic’ response. A human response, based on ‘real life’ is very important to me – you don’t just get someone reading from a text book'!
DC

'Social networking, the Christmas ‘do’ and the support sessions are good. There are plenty of these
if you have the time for all of them'!
LL


Challenges
'Fostering is demanding and tiring and you don’t realise it. It’s 24 hours a day, seven days a week – they’re not your children so they are not going to behave like your children – so it will be a shock' DS

'It’s not all rosy. You have to have a strong family, especially to be solid as a couple because, if not, it could destabilise your whole family – especially with kids who have emotional baggage. But the good thing is, that we’re clear about what we can and can’t handle and Integrated Care respects this, which is why it works. They aren’t just sending any child to us'. JD

'To be a successful foster carer, you need to have a great deal of empathy, understanding and patience. ‘Walk a mile in their shoes’ is such an appropriate phrase because children in care definitely walk a different path to the rest of us'.
VA


Rewards
'We get a lot of rewards from the children because you do start to see them change. We did actually manage to get one young girl through college, which was a real turn around ' LV

'I had a little girl of 9 months and a boy of 2 years who came into care due to severe neglect and a complete lack of socialisation, particularly around food and obesity issues. Addressing this and with speech and portage issues by the time both children left (under two years later), their mobility was much improved, they’d lost weight and this was really rewarding'  LL

'One child had been out of school for a long time. After several years with us she went on to get four GCSE’s, which is much higher than the ‘usual’ expectation of one GCSE for children in care. She really struggled with authority, getting up in the morning, so it was really rewarding to see
her achieve'

Insight from a foster carer’s daughter
The importance of your immediate family and even your extended family, sharing your aims as a foster carer, go a long way to help you support any child who becomes part of your family, for whatever length of time. Zoe, an 11 year old daughter of a foster carer, tells us about her experiences of growing up as the daughter of a foster carer.