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Mother-Baby Placements: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know

It’s commonly considered that children are our most precious natural resource, as they will inherit this world well after we’re gone. Ensuring that our children are properly prepared to become the adults of tomorrow is an important job and one that needs doing. It’s why becoming a foster carer is such a crucial endeavour.

Being a foster carer is an experience that can be incredibly rewarding on an emotional level. There’ simply nothing more gratifying than knowing you’ve played a role in helping a child or young person in need by opening your home to them — and, often, your heart as well.

Foster Caring With Twice the Impact, Twice the Rewards

All this is especially noteworthy when you have the opportunity to provide for the physical and emotional needs of not just one young life but two at the same time. In fact, if there’s an instance that a young person in the foster system needs as much care and support as they can get, it’s when a teenage girl is expecting a child.

Imagine raising a child without family support. Imagine starting life as a parent without having yet gained a foothold in the community. These are only some of the challenges that young mothers seeking foster care are grappling with.

Teen mums, or teens that will soon become mothers, are some of the most vulnerable and in need of looking after in the foster care system, save for perhaps the children of these young mothers themselves.

The highly specific needs of a teen mother and her child make looking after mother and baby one of the ultimate challenges a foster carer may face. At the same time, it’s easily one of the most rewarding as well. If you’ve ever wondered what it means to receive a mother-baby fostering, or even just what it takes to become a foster carer if you’re interested in caring for teen mums and their babies, here’s everything you’ve ever wanted to know about mother-baby placements.

What Exactly is a Mother-Baby Placement?

The title is telling, but these special foster arrangements call for a little more explanation. There are, in fact, a few different types of scenarios in which a young mother might need foster care.

Why a Young Mother Might Need Foster Care

Pregnancy and those first months of motherhood are a crucial time. Young mothers who seek foster carers need a sensitive and non-judgemental environment in which they can focus on their baby’s health as well as their own.

Sometimes, as a result of a court decision, a mother who struggles to care for baby in the face of difficult obstacles is placed in foster care. The placement is temporary and while she’s there, she and her baby are not only supported and encouraged but also observed. The observation is for the benefit of the court and usually lasts 12 weeks. More later on how that observation works and the role you play.

The same scenario can occur when the birth hasn’t yet taken place. The young mother-to-be is often placed by her social worker and comes to a foster home to prepare for the birth. Again, there is usually an assessment component and you, as the foster carer, would play a central role in that assessment.

But the part you play is much larger than that. You’ll also act as mentor — a prenatal resource for a young woman who is undoubtedly overwhelmed by everything life is throwing at her. You can help simply by providing the basics — a stable home life, good nutrition, and someone to talk to if she needs it while she prepares for her birth.

Observe, Report, Support, Guide

We’ll talk later about the types of training you’ll have access to when you’re preparing to foster a young mother. We’ll also try and define your role a little better, since many who are new to the fostering world aren’t quite familiar with what’s expected of them. But here’s a preview: think of your role as a blend of the following steps:

Observe

Report

Support

Guide

Basically, the foster carer gives the right kind of help at the right time as the mother-baby story unfolds.

Other Types of Placements

If you’ve been thinking about fostering for a while, you may have run across a similar-sounding term, “Parent and Child Placement”. We’ve been exclusively directing our information here toward mother and baby placements but let’s not forget there’s often another parent in the picture.

Parent and child placements span the very wide range of what can constitute a family caring team for an infant or child. And, as the name suggests, these types of placements are for parent(s) and children, which can mean any number of things — toddlers, children, ‘tweens, plus any combination of mother, father, or both.

Sometimes it’s a father and his child who need a foster environment in which to develop their relationship. Once they build a solid foundation for a good future relationship and they can get back on their feet again, the parents who participate in this type of fostering setup will go back out into the community and begin to build a new life.

It’s really the same general plan as a mother-baby placement where the birth has already taken place. It all boils down to having time together in a stable environment where they can get to know one another without the burden of having to cope with too much stress.  

What’s it Like to Foster a Mother and Her Baby?

A young mother benefits in countless ways from her time staying with a foster carer. That being said, there’s another side to this story and that’s the experience of the carers themselves. It’s certainly a journey — and one that can bring life-altering discoveries, too. As they start out on that journey, carers begin with the selfless notion of helping out some of Britain’s most vulnerable young people. Next, they go through a qualification process. Then there’s the training they receive, after which they generously open up their homes. What happens after that is a whole journey in and of itself. It goes toward providing a young mother the chance to not only survive, but to possibly thrive.

What’s it all like? We thought we’d try and give you a sense of the greater picture as well as what it’s like at the day-to-day level. Here’s what you’ll be doing should you choose the mother-baby route for your foster caring journey.

You’ll Be Helping to Keep Britain’s Families Together

Helping to keep a family together is one of the most fundamentally important contributions you could ever make. What goes into such a significant act? Simply by providing a safe, stable environment, you’re helping immensely.

But providing a stable, caring environment is just the beginning. There’s a mutual trust that you work to build between you and the young person entrusted in your care. Learning to trust is just one step of the process for a young woman who has quite a few challenges ahead of her. Together, you and she will work to build a trusting relationship that may prove to be the bedrock of her family one day. A solid start in your home with her new baby could be the launchpad to a world of positive change in her life.

You’ll be Harnessing the Strength of an Entire Community

Then there’s also the wisdom you pass along, to help in both practical and emotional ways.

That wisdom is partly the result of an entire team of supporters working to provide a good beginning for both mother and baby. We’ll talk more about that network of support later on. But just know, for now, that you aren’t in this alone. There’s no reason to feel doubtful about your abilities. You will have your own support network in addition to a wide range of resources at your fingertips. Remember, it takes a village.  

Your reward is that you, the actual foster carer, serve as point person for that support team, grappling with the daily trials and tribulations — and joys — of helping a young mother bring a newborn into the world.

You’ll be Expanding Your World With Valuable, Professional Training

The rewards of foster caring are limitless but, like any demanding role you play, a support system is key. The training you receive and the knowledge you’ll gain by working within that support system will enrich your understanding of the world in a multitude of ways.

As you know, you’ll be part of a team of highly qualified professionals who, together, provide support in a wide variety of ways. There will be several areas of expertise represented by the full caregiving team, from which you can benefit. Build on that knowledge and use it, along with your foster caring experience, to gain new insights. It’s all part of helping to weave the safety net that every mother should have around her, helping, guiding, nurturing, and teaching her how to bring her baby into a better world.

You’ll be Helping Someone Learn to Put Baby First

Many of the young women who enter the foster caring system while pregnant or with newborns are barely out of adolescence themselves. With motherhood looming, the world can seem like a terrifying place for them.

Without the traditional support network behind her, a young mother in foster care feels the apprehension of giving birth and caring for a newborn more intensely than women who have the full support of a loving family as well as a circle of friends.

Regardless of her fears and apprehensions, however, she will be learning new lessons while she spends time in foster care. Her mother-baby placement is about learning to put baby first — proving that she can do it, earning the right to go out into the community one day and live a full, satisfying, healthy lifestyle that’s good for both her baby and herself.

And you’re there to help her take those steps. By providing the daily support that any young mother or mother-to-be requires, you’re giving her the confidence to focus on raising a happy, healthy baby.

You’ll be Empowering Independence

For anyone who’s ever championed the cause of empowering young women to rise above the hurdles they face in life, foster caring is the ultimate gift. Among the many things you’ll impart to the young mother who’s placed temporarily in your care, you’ll also have the opportunity to demonstrate the power of self-sufficiency.

She may have a long way to go toward complete independence at the moment, but the journey always has to start somewhere. Showing a young mother that she does have the resources within her to succeed in her new role is how you help her to take that first step.

You’ll be Watching a Young Mother Grow Into Her New Role

The essential support provided by mother-baby foster carers allows for the most fundamental of human relationships to thrive: that of a mother and her baby. It gives the mother the space, the comfort, and the support she requires in order to become completely in tune with her baby.

The benefits of this will last and reverberate throughout the baby’s lifetime. It’s a special bond. It’s one which every child born into this world has a right to experience. And it’s not a function of wealth, culture, or class. It’s a bond that a mother creates with her child in spite of how tough things can get. It’s a bond that every child deserves. In many cases, it’s formed against all odds — amidst chaos, pain, distress, and even violence. Give a young mother the basics, a foster carer who’s there to support her, and she will form that essential bond with her baby.

Mother-baby foster carers are the sole reason these young mothers have a chance to prove they can grow into their new role — motherhood.

You’ll be Growing Into a New Role Yourself

As for your role as foster carer, there couldn’t be a more important role to play, as far as making the world a better place. Each day you spend helping a young mum prepare for her birth or care for her newborn, you’re weaving an essential thread into the fabric of our society, making it stronger and better with each passing moment of your foster caring journey.

Even with all these rewarding outcomes before you as a carer in a mother-baby placement, you might still be wondering what motivates different people to choose this role. We tapped into some recent research as well as our own, informal knowledge gained from speaking to countless clients over the years.

Why do People Choose Mother-Baby Placements?

There are as many reasons people choose mother-baby foster caring as there are people.

One of the common misconceptions about foster caring is that people do it for the money. But talk to people who’ve experienced this special form of foster caring before you, and it’s immediately clear that that isn’t the case.

Since every foster carer has their own reasons for choosing this route, it’s nearly impossible to say for sure what those reasons are. But in general, all of the following motivations appeal to the kind and generous people who open up their homes to young mothers and their babies.

1. They Want to be Part of the Solution

Lots of people are shocked to hear that every year in the UK, 60 babies are abandoned. That’s more than one baby each week, left on its own by a parent who doesn’t have the ability or the resources to keep their child.

Sadly, that figure is rising. It’s a failure on many levels when a mother is forced to abandon her newly born baby. Experts who’ve studied the reasons list a wide range of reasons why mothers abandon their babies at birth:

Afraid to tell their parents

Social taboos

Denial

Poverty

Homelessness

Lack of a support network from friends, family, and others

Fear of not being able to handle the responsibility emotionally

Postnatal depression

Domestic violence

Physical disability

For these young mothers, the prospect of a mother-baby placement on the horizon opens up more options. With a clear vision of a way to get help and get back on their feet, they can maybe begin to see a way through to keeping their babies. Aided by a strong network of support and able to trust in a safe place to live where they can care for themselves and their newborn babies, young mothers are free to make the choice to keep their baby rather than abandoning them anonymously. When there are more options, outlooks can change a lot.

2. They Know They’re Critically Necessary in Today’s World

You may know that Britain is already in the midst of a foster care crisis. In England alone, there are 70,720 children who are looked after “away from home”. Of those, 78 percent are in foster care. There is a predicted need for an additional 6,800 foster families each year. Meanwhile, levels of foster carers have been in steady decline for several years now.

Council budgets are stretched beyond their ability to effectively handle the growing number of children in Britain’s foster care network.

Chief among the difficult placements are teenagers and sibling groups — that’s to be expected, as they can bring certain challenges that not every foster carer is up to meeting.

The third-most difficult placement is a parent with their child. This type of placement most often refers to young mothers who have a baby or toddler. Demand for these placements is on the rise because of austerity measures put into place at all levels of government. Foster placements account for about three-quarters of the looked-after children in England so austerity measures are having a significant impact on this segment of the population.

Only 6 percent of all looked-after children end up in placements with parents but the need is growing. At the same time, austerity measures have reduced availability of mother and baby units or shut them down altogether. The result is a push to place mothers and their babies with foster carers.

That speaks to a general consensus that keeping families together is beneficial for everyone. The help they get in a foster caring environment can lead to those families remaining together for the long term — and hopefully a lifetime.

3. They Have a Philosophy of Foster Caring That’s Right for the 21st Century

Notions of what makes a strong, healthy society change from time to time. Today, it’s generally accepted that both mother and baby benefit when they’re allowed to live together and form important bonds. It’s healthier for society at large, as well.

While that may sound like a no-brainer, it definitely wasn’t the case as recently as the 1950s. That’s when the law in Britain moved away from institutionalism and toward family-oriented solutions like foster caring.

Before that, there was really only one pathway of recourse for women who today would have been candidates for mother-baby placements. It was to hand their baby over, at birth, to London’s Foundling Hospital. Founded with good intentions in the 1700s, the institution operated for over 200 years. Although it had provided foundlings a much-needed home, as well as guidance and a proper start in life, the goals of those who ran it were substantially different from what today is considered proper or healthy.  

In some cases, unmarried women were even sometimes “convinced” to hand over their babies to institutions such as the Foundling Hospital, sometimes against their own wishes. Foundlings were given new names and sent out into the world with pasts erased.Mothers were able to avoid a family scandal that would have arisen should there have been a child born out of wedlock.

And of course, mother and baby were separated, leaving both with vast empty holes in their hearts. In many cases, there was a lifelong sense of feeling incomplete and separate from the rest of the world.

“I really think if you don’t get proper love and security in the first few years, nothing can make up for it later,”

  Tom Mackenzie, Britain’s last foundling

  As you can see, the foster caring system in the UK is an essential part of creating hope for the futures of Britain’s young mothers and their babies. As such, foster carers who consider taking babies and their mums into their homes are fulfilling a deeply vital role in our society.

4. It’s a Natural Fit

For some, welcoming a mother and her baby into their home just seems natural. They’re able to bring out the skills they’ve spent many years building while they raised their own children. Passing on all that knowledge is intensely rewarding for them.

They also enjoy serving as good role models. It’s a good experience for these young mums to come to understand at least one version of what a functioning family looks like. There are countless algorithms that result in happy families but at least they’ve seen what one of them looks like.

5. They Understand the Society-Wide Importance of Keeping Mothers and their Babies Together

The morales and practices upheld by foundling institutions of yesteryear pass a harsh judgement on young mothers. The stated goals, although written with good intentions, caused generations of heartache, misery, pain, and confusion.

According to institutional protocols for “abandoned” babies, these children were “cleansed” of their past. Given new names, the were thereby “legitimized”. This was done in order to give them a chance at acceptance by society. Believe it or not, back then it was considered the only solution that would put both mother and baby on a path to a “normal” life.

Thankfully, young mothers no longer suffer the harsh treatment they once experienced during Victorian times and earlier. After 200 years of working to separate mothers from babies, the collective mindset has changed dramatically. Now, we value the special bond that exists between a mother and her baby. We understand the importance this bond plays not only in their lives but as a foundation of our society as well. It seems like a no-brainer, but decades of research-backed evidence has shown that kids do better when they have at least one loving parent to watch over them.

Healthy, well-adjusted young mums and babies grow up become happier members of society. People who choose to become foster carers are helping knit together a stronger fabric of society. We all benefit when this happens.

6. They Want to Give Back

Occasionally, there are people who envision their lives as fulfilling a certain type of role — one of service. For lots of them, foster caring is an avenue through which they find satisfaction, fulfillment, and joy. They’re part of the small number of foster carers who seem to be driven by altruism throughout their entire lives as they find new ways to live “a life of service” and modernize the term for the 21st century.

That being said, however, the job is certainly an emotional one. A strong desire  “give back” is hardly enough to ensure someone will be able to withstand the emotional ups and downs of helping a vulnerable mother with her pregnancy or her newborn.

7. They Simply Want to Share, Teach, and Grow

Many among us are natural-born mentors, teachers, and nurturers. For some, those inclinations are persistently strong throughout their lives, resulting in a long and varied journey as they explore all the different ways in which they can share their energy with others. And for a select few, that urge to share, teach, and grow with others becomes manifested in the desire to server as a foster carer for a mother and her baby.

Whatever reasons you have coming into the foster caring role, know this. The part you play, when you share your home, teach what you know, and grow with the young mother and her baby, will reverberate throughout your life as well. The training you receive, the network of support you lean on, and the ongoing assistance you get are there to ensure that those small ripples of impact are as favorable as some of the most incredible experiences in your life.

What are the Young Mothers Like?

The women who are placed in foster care with their babies come from a wide range of backgrounds. And though we usually see young mums, there are also women in their 20s, 30s, and even in their 40s who are referred to mother baby placements.

Each needs help in the many different ways circling around the event of their baby’s birth. From nutrition to self-care to learning how to breastfeed to understanding the importance of keeping all their doctor’s appointments, giving birth and motherhood are accompanied by an endless list of responsibilities and tasks. That’s true for any mother-to-be!

But each of the mothers in a foster placement situation face additional hurdles because they are coming from challenging situations. Whether it’s poverty, homelessness, domestic violence, other other difficult and compromising situations, each has arrived at a place where their ability to raise a newborn is being questioned. Under your supervision and with your support, the mother you host will strive to prove that she is indeed capable.

She may arrive at your door bearing little trust in the system that’s brought her to you. Typically, within a short time, she adjusts to the stable environment and begins to build trust as well as a rapport with her foster carer.

Most of these mothers have been stripped of the traditional support network that typically surrounds other mothers, such as family, friends, and approval from society. Her new support network consists of you and the rest of the caring team that makes up her and your support network.

Nevertheless, they’re still individuals, imbibed with all the hopes and dreams that accompany youth. They’re also families and they have a future to look forward to if they can get through the setbacks that have landed them in foster care. They have much to contribute to society, too, if given the chance.

How is Mother-Baby Placement Different From Other Foster Caring?

Mother-baby placements stand out from other types in a few ways other than the fact that there’s a mother-baby dynamic. Primarily, there’s the assessment that you make of the mother’s progress.

What a Typical Assessment Looks Like

Foster carers who welcome a mother and baby (or soon-to-be mother) have to keep daily records of their observations.

Of course, the mother is made aware of how the process works and knows she is being observed. It’s usually helpful for the carer and the mother to communicate about their impressions of how things are going. If they find they’re on different playing fields, there’s a team of professionals to help them work on ironing out the wrinkles in their care plan.

Your goal is to help the mother learn to put her baby’s welfare ahead of anyone else’s interests. You’ll gather evidence in the form of daily observations that you will write down. You’ll share your observations with the mother. In fact, that’s an integral part of the process. Reviewing this together and the discussions that follow form an essential part of the learning process for the mother.

This data from your daily log will be added to the body of evidence gathered by other professionals when they visit. Therefore, you should expect to have regular visits from other members of the team, including social workers.

As you can see, the assessment is a compilation of the work of several team members, including yourself. It will be reviewed by a number of final decision-makers such as child protection services, a court guardian, and additional social workers.  

It’s a Guiding Role More Than a Direct Care Situation

Children who have been separated from their families and who are placed in foster care need parenting and care from their foster carer. The young women in a mother-baby placement have different needs. They need supervision and guidance more than anything. Remember, this is about empowering them to live independently while caring for their babies. If the carer stepped in and got involved in the daily tasks of raising a newborn, it wouldn’t serve the goals set by care team or the foster care program. Carers will have to learn to remain on the sidelines when, for example, a diaper needs changing or the baby starts crying.

It’s key that a carer understand the nature of their role and that’s partly what the training period is for: ironing out any confusion about boundaries and how much care is to be given.

It’s also key that the mother understand those boundaries as well. This actually is a factor that’s reared its head in research done on mother-baby placements. In a qualitative survey done in 2011, both the mother and the carers reported that clarity of the role of the carer is essential to both parties. These types of questions need to be answered:

Is the carer looking after the parent or the baby, or both?

What is the carer’s relationship with social services?

What is the carer’s role in assessing the parenting skills?

All three of these questions are sources of confusion for young mothers, according to the survey. The confusion over these boundary issues becomes even more acute when the mother becomes pregnant while in custody (of course, that’s a whole different scenario to be played out and isn’t really relevant here).

Preparation is Identical to any Other Role as Foster Carer

Preparing to become a foster carer specifically for a mother-baby placement is functionally the same as preparing to become a foster carer. In fact, the preliminary processes are almost entirely identical, save for expressing interest in taking mother-baby placements in the first place when you approach an independent foster agency with your desire to become a foster carer.

Your journey begins with an initial meeting between you and a representative of the agency. In most cases, this will be a qualified social worker, and you’ll have a frank conversation with them that will involve discussing your motivation for becoming a foster carer. This is your first opportunity to make your preferences known for wanting mother-child placements.

Doing so is likely to be music to your social worker’s ears, as there is often a lack of foster carers with the drive and dedication to take on such an awesome responsibility of caring for two such closely-intertwined lives at once.

Don’t fret if you feel like you might not have the proper skill set to take on such an important role just yet; as your social worker will undoubtedly explain to you, becoming a foster carer involves a number of steps, several of which provide you with opportunities for developing the skills you’ll need to excel in the job.

Opportunities to Share, Teach, and Grow

Everything that goes into the preparation and qualification process of becoming a foster carer is designed to offer you the kinds of opportunities for growth that you need to become an excellent carer for a mother-baby placement.

Let’s go further into detail on that process and explore everything you’ll learn, and everything you’ll be asked to do before you’re provided the privilege of opening your home and heart to a teen mum or an expectant teen mother.

Meeting Some Major Requirements

During that initial meeting with your agency social worker, you’ll likely be informed of the requirements set out by the Government that you’ll need to meet to be considered for a foster carer role. All of these requirements are designed with the best interests in mind for the child or young person you foster, which in turn ensure that you can safely and successfully fulfill that role to the best of your ability.

First and foremost, you need the physical space in your home to accommodate an expectant mother or a mother and baby. This amounts to an extra bedroom. In most cases, you would need a separate bedroom for every child you’re fostering, but this is not the case when in some instances, such as with siblings under a certain age or if you’re providing accommodation for a teen mum with a newborn. Your social worker can provide you with more detailed information.

Additionally, you need to provide documentation that you are physically and healthy enough to work as a foster carer. This job can often be demanding on a number of levels, least of which is physical, and being hale and hearty enough to do all the physical things that go along with being a surrogate parent — like helping a teen mum feed, change, and bathe their baby. You’ll need to visit your GP and submit to an NHS health check to satisfy the physical requirement.

Additionally, you’ll need to provide your foster agency with proof that you are financially healthy as well. This can be done by submitting documents that show you have never had to declare bankruptcy. While it’s true that you receive compensation for being a foster carer — more on that later — it’s also important to know that you are financially stable before you begin working for a foster agency. Lack of any bankruptcies in your financial history is satisfactory proof of your financial stability.

Another important requirement for becoming a foster carer involves presenting your foster agency with a number of personal and professional references. Ideally, these should be from individuals that have seen or experienced your abilities to care for children firsthand; this makes former partners that helped raise children with you ideal, as are adult children that have since moved out. Don’t discount professional references either, though, as input from work colleagues can also be invaluable in evaluating your suitability for a foster carer position.

Working Through the Process

You’re not done once you submit proof of satisfying these requirements, though. In fact, there is much more to becoming a foster carer that you’ll still need to do. This process is not quick, as there’s a vested interest in placing children in the system with the best foster carers for them and their particular needs.

If you’re serious about taking on this new responsibility, especially if you’re actively pursuing mother-baby placements, you’ll likely be gratified to discover that foster agencies provide opportunities to develop and review child care skills specifically relevant to looking after foster children. It begins with a “Skills to Foster Training” seminar, held over a two-to-three-day period, that unites a number of prospective foster carers in agency-led group sessions. These events, which usually occur over a weekend, will see you learning crucial skills, receiving answers to any burning questions, and making connections with other prospective foster carers going through the process as well.

An Extra Word on Skills to Foster Training

The Skills to Foster Training Seminar is one of the cornerstones of the preparation process for becoming a foster carer. The training you receive during this intensive weekend provides excellent foundational work for any prospective foster carer, especially one that’s aspiring for mother-baby placements. A training weekend routinely covers these crucial topics in depth:

How foster carers help in the development of the children (or, in this case,  young people) they look after

What kinds of circumstances can lead to someone entering the foster system

The specific types of support, such as physical or emotional, that foster carers will need to provide to the mother and baby in their care

The importance of promoting positive identities and the role foster carers play supporting those identities for anyone involved in care

Foster support network infrastructure that carers are encouraged to participate in to provide the best levels of care for the young people they look after

Transition management, good behaviour reinforcement, boundary setting, relationship building, and other crucial relational skills

Ideal approaches to help integrate those on your care into your family unit and larger circle of friends

Questions and discussion are encouraged during these training seminars. Group leaders provide encouragement and share their own experiences with the prospective foster carers who attend these seminars. As a whole, they are especially eager to provide their expertise to foster carers who express a desire to seek mother-baby placements.

The Rest of the Story

In addition to skills training, which is unarguably an essential part of becoming a foster carer, part and parcel to this process is being certified by the Government to work with children. Much in the same way that creche and nursery workers and school personnel need to satisfy the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) that they are suitable for their roles, foster carers likewise need to seek an Enhanced Closure certification from the DBS as well. It’s a reminder that being a foster carer is still considered a job, even though you may be acting, in many ways, as a parent would to a child — or in this case, a teen mother and her own child.

Speaking of certification, there’s one last but major hurdle to clear before you can become a foster carer, and that’s undergoing a thorough assessment from the British Association of Adoption and Fostering (BAAF). This Fostering Assessment is a lengthy and exhaustive process that begins with your social worker, takes several months (anywhere from four to six months, in fact) and doesn’t end until your social worker submits their final report to a panel for review. This same Fostering Panel, comprising several independent experts in their field, will have you attend a meeting where you’ll be given an opportunity to answer any final questions panelists have regarding your suitability as a foster carer.

Pending your performance during your Fostering Panel review, your case will then be submitted to an Agency Decision Maker. It’s his or her job to go through everything you’ve done during your time preparing for becoming a foster carer. To review, this includes:

Providing physical space for a foster child, or in this case a mother-and-child placement

Submitting to an NHS health check

Offering proof of never having declared bankruptcy

Providing adequate references

Attending the Skills to Foster Training Seminar

Obtaining an Enhanced Disclosure from the DBS

Undergoing a BAAF Fostering Assessment

Attending the Foster Panel review

If you’ve accomplished all of these goals to the satisfaction of the Agency Decision Maker, congratulations! You’ll be informed shortly thereafter that you have been accepted into your agency’s foster carer programme, with all the rights and responsibilities therein. You can now look forward to receiving your first placement, which usually occurs a few weeks thereafter.

You and Your Agency Social Worker

Before we discuss the specifics of accepting a mother-baby placement or any kind of foster placement, it’s important to note that, because of the very nature of being a foster carer, you will need to have a robust support structure at your back to provide the best level of care in turn. Caring for a teen mum who is also struggling with a newborn comes with absolute shedloads of stress for everyone, and while you will have plenty of love and support to go around for both mother and baby, there are bound to be instances when you’ll need outside help.

In such situations, your first point of contact will be your agency social worker. Foster carers are routinely assigned the same social workers throughout their tenure with an agency, and this leads to excellent working relationships being built over the months and years.

Social workers often have the answers to any specific questions you may have about any number of issues that can crop up as you’re providing foster care. Even if they don’t have a direct answer for you, you can rest assured that they can put you in contact with someone who does have the ability to answer your questions or help you resolve specific situations.

In fact, one of the most important referrals that your social worker can make for you is to put you in contact with an older, more experienced foster carer who is ready and willing to act in a mentorship to help you out with your new role. Agencies are quite fond of providing one-on-one mentorship schemes to offer new foster carers like yourself with unique viewpoints. Expert advice from experienced foster carers, perhaps even carers who have had a few mother-baby placements themselves, can be an invaluable resource to you in many situations.

That’s not the only way your social worker provides support, though. One important facet of your relationship with him or her is that together you can formulate a detailed individual development plan. Such planning helps identify your strengths and weaknesses when it comes to your skills as a foster carer and provides avenues for you to develop which of these skills you feel are in need of further support. Since foster workers come from all walks of life and they all have different skill sets and experiences before transitioning into this new role, it’s incredibly beneficial to have access to this kind of structured bespoke skill development planning.

Support Structures Beyond Your Social Worker

Your social worker is an excellent resource for you and will certainly contribute to your role as a foster carer. Yet everything he or she can do for you is just the very tip of the support iceberg. There are even more resources that a good independent foster agency will provide for their foster carers, especially those who have decided to pursue mother-baby placements.

One of those resources that has the most potential benefit is the networking structure that springs up around all the other foster carers within the same agency. Foster families that live in the same general geographical area often gather at agency-sponsored events every month or even more regularly than that.

These meetups offer a number of different opportunities for foster carers and the children and young people they look after. The social interaction alone between foster children of all ages is an attractive option, especially as children within the system have unique perspectives that can occasionally make them feel left out when interacting with schoolmates and friends that are not being fostered. This allows foster children to be themselves, often without pretense — something that is highly beneficial to their development into adults.

Likewise, meetups of this nature provide excellent opportunities for foster carers themselves to create relationships with each other. Just as foster children have much in common with one another through shared experience, foster carers do as well. Forging relationships with entire foster families provides new and exciting friendships. These friendships can evolve into deeper connections in these families, such as regular “mum and baby play dates” and other such shared experiences. At the same time, they often help build camaraderie between the foster carers themselves.

Even More Advanced Help

Even with the tireless aid of your social worker, the expert advice of your experienced mentor, and the strong bonds forged between foster families at regular meetups, it’s still possible that you’ll encounter problems that need extra attention. With mother-baby placements being inherently just a bit more complex than a more straightforward foster placement, it’s no surprise at all when situations arise where that extra attention is warranted.

That’s why foster agencies always offer additional layers of advanced help in just such a complex situation. It’s not uncommon to have home visits from an experienced senior social worker during these instances. A home visit can help the agency worker more clearly evaluate the variables in play and help resolve any issues or aid in finding solutions to particularly challenging dilemmas.

Finally, and this is one often-overlooked bit of support that is provided to foster carers, your agency will provide to you two weeks of paid respite for every year you work with them as a foster carer. It’s another gentle reminder that being a foster carer is indeed a job — a career path for many, in fact — and that everyone needs some time off to recharge themselves.

Foster families often do not have the same resources as a biological family might have. That would include such resources as grandparents or relatives that are willing to provide parenting help occasionally. That’s why this respite period is so important. It’s often the difference between burning out as a foster carer and coming back after a short rest as eager and dedicated as ever. Many foster carers report that after respite, they feel even more committed to making a difference in the lives of those who need it the most. In short, you can look forward to enjoying some time on your own whilst also knowing that any children you’re looking after will be well cared for by a respite carer in the meantime.

The Financials of Mother-Baby Placements

Here’s what you can expect when it comes to the financial side of things. Making the choice to foster a mother and her baby means slightly different compensation levels, benefits, and tax treatment than for people who foster a single child or children.

Let’s start with how compensation is calculated. Keep in mind these are only guidelines. The following figures are used as a starting point for calculating how much foster carers receive when they opt for mother-baby placements. However, they represent minimum amounts and they are subject to change each year.

Compensation for Foster Carers

We’ve mentioned this quite a bit so far, but it’s worth repeating. Being a foster carer is a highly valued career, one that provides generous compensation for your time, your effort, and, in many cases, your love and support for some of the most vulnerable among us. This is true whether you’re fostering a single child, if you have a mother-baby placement, or any other combination of foster children or young people.

Compensation for working as a foster carer is calculated according to minimum guidelines set by the Government. You are compensated for every week of the year that you provide foster care in your home, and your compensation changes depending on a number of factors, which include the age of the young person in your care, where you live in the UK, and other factors such as whether they have specific or specialised physical or emotional care needs.

There is, therefore, no standard compensation rate that you can earn from being a foster carer. However, the following table can provide you with a glimpse of the kinds of different compensation amounts you can earn.

For foster carers that live in London, your weekly compensation rates are:

£146 for babies

£149 for children of pre-primary age

£168 for primary-age children

£190 for children aged 11 through 15

£222 for children aged 16 and 17

For foster carers that live in the South East, these rates are as follows:

£140 for babies

£144 for children of pre-primary age

£160 for primary-age children

£182 for children aged 11 through 15

£214 for children aged 16 and 17

Finally, for foster carers that live anywhere else in England, your compensation rates are:

£127 for babies

£130 for children of pre-primary age

£143 for primary-age children

£164 for children aged 11 through 15

£191 for children aged 16 and 17

You can, therefore, suss out what your weekly minimum compensation allowance would be in the event that you receive a mother-baby placement. As you can see, it’s dependent on the age of both mother and baby and where in England you live. However, it’s important to note that these are minimum allowances and that you are very likely to receive much more than this amount for your service. That’s something that will be detailed further below.

It’s also important to note that these rates are subject to change on an annual basis. In fact, the Government reviews minimum weekly compensation rates every April. In this case, the figures quoted are the minimum weekly allowance rates for the 2018-2019 financial year. Whether these weekly rates change in the future is something that you can discuss with your social worker.

The Benefits of Working with a Foster Agency

Regarding these minimum weekly allowance figures, these payments are meant to provide you with the financial resources to provide everything that every child or young person in your care needs.  However, there is one crucial fact of which you must be made aware: almost every foster carer, and especially those who work with independent foster agencies, tend to receive much more in weekly compensation.

In recognition of the valued service that foster carers provide to some of society’s most vulnerable and at-need, foster agencies have the resources to award their carers quite generously for all of their hard work. In fact, taking a page from Perpetual Fostering’s typical weekly allowance payments illustrates that foster carers for the agency typically receive anywhere from £350 to £650 a week per foster.

Where you as a foster carer would fall on that earnings scale is dependent on a number of different factors, all of which are determined on a case-for-case basis. Some of these factors can be whether a foster carer needs to provide for someone with highly specific requirements. That would include requirements such as:

A physical disability

An ailment that necessitates round-the-clock medical care

Carers that have advanced skills or those necessary to meet the particular needs of a specific placement are also routinely awarded a larger compensation allowance as well.

It goes without saying that mother-baby placements are often some of the most challenging placements that any foster carer can receive. The complexity of caring for a teen mum and her child requires nothing but the best from a foster carer in regards to compassion, patience, and dedication, and that means that mother-baby placements are almost always among the most well-compensated. Don’t worry — you’ll most certainly earn every penny of that weekly allowance!

Tax Relief and Even More Financial Benefits

It’s clear at this point that being a foster carer has the potential to not just be emotionally rewarding but financially rewarding as well. In the case of fostering more than one child at a time, or taking a mother-baby placement, both the emotional and financial rewards grow exponentially.

Yet that’s not the only financial benefit you receive from doing the good work of being a foster carer; you also receive a number of tax-related benefits as well.

There are two forms of tax relief that you are entitled to when it comes to your work as a foster carer.

Tax Exemption

The first is a fixed tax exemption that you receive towards the initial £10,000 you earn from providing foster care every financial year. This figure remains the same regardless of how many foster carers are in the same household.

If you and your spouse are both foster carers, for instance, you only receive this tax exemption once. It also doesn’t change depending on the number of children or young people you foster, and this figure is also subject to adjustment if you don’t serve as a foster carer for an entire year.

Weekly Tax Relief

Yet there is a secondary tax benefit that you gain access to for being a foster carer, and this benefit does change depending on both the number of children you foster and how many weeks out of the year you spend fostering them. You receive an additional £200 in tax relief every week you foster a child under the age of 11, up to a maximum of £10,400 for a full 52 weeks. This rises to £250 per week for children over this threshold, up to a maximum of £13,000.

This tax relief is additive. In other words, if you have a mother-baby placement for an entire 52 weeks, your total tax benefit would be a £10,000 exemption, £13,000 for the mother, and £10,400 for the baby. This alone amounts to £33,400 in non-taxable income from being a foster carer.

Note that your annual tax-free personal allowance cannot be applied to your earnings as a foster carer, as these tax benefits are used in their stead. However, if you maintain a work career independent of your work as a foster carer, you are still entitled to use your personal allowance to reduce your tax burden on those funds.

FAQ’s

1. What is a Parent and Child Assessment Placement?

Sometimes the courts need convincing that a baby should stay with the mother. Assuming that’s a safe choice for both parties, the courts will allow a “trial period” of remaining together, during which the parenting and life skills are assessed. That’s where a foster carer comes in.

If all goes well during a 12-week assessment, the family unit — mother and baby — can transition into the community to begin their life together. You’ve helped save them from being forcibly separated, perhaps forever.

2. Will I have supervision?

All foster carers receive supervision that’s designed to support them in every way. From answering the questions you’ll have about the details of daily life with your placement to the bigger questions you’ll undoubtedly face, there’s a network of support and supervision for you throughout your foster caring experience.

3. Will I have to give evidence in court?

Perhaps. One of your main responsibilities is to make daily observations so you can make a detailed report. Your views become part of the social worker’s overall report to the judge and they are used in court. In some cases, you will be called in to give evidence.

4. What is a family assessment centre?

It’s the alternative to a foster carer placement, and oftentimes it’s the alternative that many are hoping to avoid. Family assessment centres are the institutional answer to the care a mother and her baby require. Foster caring, on the other hand, offer a more personalized experience with, very often, a higher level of support and care given to the needs of the young mother and her baby.

5. I’ve never fostered anyone before- what resources will I have?

You’ll have regular contact with a circle of professionals who will serve as the care team for your mother-baby placements. They are your resource and you have a mentor to whom you can ask questions, express your feelings, and from whom you can seek advice.

6. What will it be like to work with the support team?

As a foster carer, your position and the role you play exist in a middle area, roughly halfway between professional and paid volunteer. As such, you will be expected to uphold a certain standard of professionalism as you fulfil your duties but at the same time, the team understands that you’re not a professional in this arena. They will treat you with respect, they will guide you when you need it, and they will listen carefully to the input that you have to offer.

7. Will fostering a baby and a mother be hard?

Foster caring can be one of the most incredibly rewarding times of your life. But don’t get us wrong. As with all rewards, there is sometimes a struggle as well. There will be times when you feel your patience is being tried, or you won’t know how to answer a question.

But that’s what your network is for. You can reach out to them any time and use their wisdom, experience, and advice to get you through any bumps in the road that you may encounter. And take it from mother-baby foster carers who’ve come before you… the benefits far outweigh anything else.

8. What kinds of things should the mother be learning?

The court needs to know that the mother is making improvements on her parenting abilities. As such, they’ll be looking to see that is able to keep doctor appointments for her baby. They’ll need to know she’s kept all her regular appointments with members of her care team, such as a health visitor. She’ll need to be able to follow their instructions and follow up on any advice she’s received from them.

9.  What happens if I feel the mother isn’t making progress?

We all like to think we make a difference, and we do. But sometimes, despite even superhuman efforts by a strong team of professionals and a wonderful foster carer at the helm, the mother is unable to meet her goals. In those cases, the baby may be put up for adoption. It can be a tough role to play but your training as well as your support team will help you get through whatever you encounter in your foster caring journey.

10. How much supervision are we talking here?

At first, there is usually a need to spend 24 hours per day with the mother but as trust is built and time passes, it often becomes possible for this regimen to loosen up a bit.

11. What’s the role of the foster agency once the placement happens?

The agency that handles your mother-baby placement has an ongoing role. This includes — but is certainly not limited to — ensuring the support you need is accessible whenever you need it. It also includes ensuring the support given meets the highest possible standards.

12. What happens when there aren’t enough people willing to become foster carers for newborns and their mothers?

Whenever possible, children should stay with their birth family, providing that it’s safe to do so. It is in everyone’s best interest — all of us — to work ceaselessly to make that happen for as many mothers as possible.

However, when a foster carer isn’t found for a mother and baby, they will go into a residential (institutional) home. An even worse outcome will be if she has to give the baby to foster care, reduced to seeing her child just a few times a week for short periods of time.

13. Are mother-baby placements usually successful?

Thankfully, the majority of these placements have positive outcomes. Mother and baby make it through the 12 weeks and leave together to start building their new life. In other words, assessments are favorable more often than not.

But keep in mind it’s not always the case. It can be very tough to live with a mother and her child and to realize that, in spite of doing her very best, it’s clear she doesn’t have the ability to care for her baby at this time.

14. What kinds of factors play into making a successful placement, from the carer’s perspective?

Experts agree that some of the factors that go into a successful placement are very clear. These factors include good planning and lots of support. Another factor is how clearly you understand your role. Remember, this is a supervisory role. You are there to observe the parenting skills of the mother, not to babysit a newborn baby. Yes, there can be a fine line in this role but you’ll be trained so that you’ll know when to take a step back and let the mother care for her baby.

Another factor that’s surfaced in the research is the attitude of the mother herself. As in most things in life, a positive outlook makes all the difference. Post-placement support is essential for helping the mother adjust to the foster caring environment and her host family.

Another factor is the foster carer’s prior knowledge of the mother. It can help to meet and get to know the mother before she moves in. It’s not always possible, unfortunately, but it does help a lot to smooth the transition both parties will have to make.

15. What specific kinds of skills do the mothers need to learn?

They will need to acquire the skills any parent needs to be self-sufficient and raise their baby properly. That covers a wide gamut of things to learn, but to give you an idea, here are some of the common areas where the mothers need to make improvements:

The basics of child development

Health and nutrition

Budgeting and other personal finance basics

16. What if I need help?

Obviously, helping a young woman make the transition to motherhood is not a task to be taken lightly. You’ll be backed by a team of highly qualified professionals who are there to support you every step of the way.

Conclusion

The Last Word in Mother-Baby Placements

By now, it should be crystal clear how foster carers provide such necessary and valued services to society, especially in light of the work they do in offering their homes and their hearts up to children and young people in need. Some of the most vulnerable in the foster care system are unequivocally teen mothers or young teenage girls that are expecting babies.

These young people, in many ways not much more than children themselves, have likely been in the system for some time and have experiences that require a deft touch and a patient, compassionate soul.

Becoming a parent can be overwhelming in even the most ideal conditions. Access to medical care, adequate nutrition, financial stability, and love and attention benefits both mother and child immensely, but extremely young mothers all too often lack these necessities. This is where the foster care system can help by providing a safe and stable environment for a new baby and their mother at a time that they both need it very much.

Working with a foster agency in order to become someone who provides that safe and welcoming environment to a teen mum and her child is often the ultimate act of compassion. If you have a burning desire to make a difference in the lives of a young mother and their baby, striving to become a foster carer who specialises in mother-baby placements is one of the biggest commitments you can make. The challenges are likely to be great, but so are the rewards — among them being memories that will last a lifetime.

Do you feel that you have what it takes to foster a mother-baby placement? Contact your local independent foster agency today to begin the process.

  The post Mother-Baby Placements: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know appeared first on Perpetual Fostering.

from Perpetual Fostering https://perpetualfostering.co.uk/insights/mother-baby-placements-everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know/

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Why Use a Fostering Agency?

If you’re thinking of taking the first step in becoming a foster carer, there’s a good chance you’ve already got what it takes. Foster parenting is all about providing a safe, secure, and nurturing home environment for children in need, and that takes a person with a kind soul and a patient heart.

At the same time, there are also a number of logistical matters that need to be attended to before you can begin your journey as a foster carer, chief of which being whether you’re going to pursue the opportunity directly through your local authority or if you’re going to make use of an independent fostering agency instead.

The question is an important one, as is the distinction between a local authority and a fostering agency. Many would think that the best route would be to deal exclusively with your local authority when it comes to becoming a foster carer, but it’s not as simple as all that; there are, in fact, loads of reasons why you should consider using a foster agency. Here’s what you need to know about the differences between a local authority and a foster agency — and why it’s often a good idea to choose the latter.

How Local Authorities and Foster Agencies are the Same

When it comes to the act of becoming a foster carer, there are a number of similarities in the process, regardless of whether you choose a local authority or a foster agency. This is due to the fact that there are a number of universal requirements that you’ll have to satisfy before even being considered for a placement; as foster agencies are acting in concert with local authorities, they are bound by the same regulations as a result.

What this means for you as an applicant is that you’re going to be subjected to a rigorous number of tests before being provided the opportunity to become a foster carer. These examinations are exhaustive for a reason: you’ll need to be evaluated for suitability as a foster carer in order to protect both your interests and those of any children that are placed into your care. This process helps to identify the types of placements that would be ideal for you according to your existing capabilities, ensuring that you’re not matched with a child that has needs that exceed your ability to provide.

To that end, regardless of whether you’re working with a local authority or a foster agency, you’ll be asked to fulfil the following requirements:

Undergo an NHS health check: You’ll need to visit your GP and receive his or her stamp of approval in the form of an NHS health check. Caring for children, even foster children, can be physically demanding, and you’ll need to prove you’re healthy enough to be up to the task.

Prove your financial health: Yes, you’ll receive compensation for your valued work as a foster carer. You still need to demonstrate you’re financially healthy as well before you’re given the responsibility of helping to raise foster children. You’ll need to prove your financial history is clear of any bankruptcy.

Show you have room for a foster child: Both foster agencies and local authorities alike won’t place a foster child with you if you don’t have adequate room in your home. You’ll need a spare bedroom, either already vacated or, in some cases, one that will be vacated by the time your application is complete (this will vary from one foster agency to another).

This is, of course, just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to qualifying to become a foster carer. There are a number of other requirements that you’ll need to satisfy as well, such as receiving an enhanced disclosure from the Disclosure and Barring Service. The DBS requires all who work with children to receive an enhanced disclosure — nursery, school, and creche workers as well as foster carers.

Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, you’ll need to undergo a highly detailed assessment, spearheaded by a social worker, that satisfies the British Association of Adoption and Fostering’s suitability requirements, a process that quite literally takes months. It involves you undergoing a thorough investigation, a process that can last up to half a year, and culminates in a final review before an independent fostering panel. The panel interview might sound harrowing, but it’s simply the last step in a highly thorough process where you’ll have the opportunity to answer any final questions panelists may have for you.

Once you’ve completed your assessment and panel review, and once you’ve satisfied the other requirements above, a final assessment will be made on whether you’ll be approved to become a foster carer.

How Foster Agencies Differ from Local Authorities During the Approval Process

Foster agencies often have additional or varying requirements when it comes to becoming a foster carer. Local authorities work hand-in-hand with these agencies when it comes to providing safety and opportunities to the children that have entered the care system, and with the number of looked-after children in that system often more than a local authority can place with qualified foster carers with ease, independent foster agencies are so crucial to this cause.

Finding the best potential foster carers is, therefore, a priority for independent foster agencies. A foster agency often encourages or even flat-out requires potential foster carers to undergo skills training during the application process. An example of this is the “Skills to Foster Training” seminar, an intensive workshop held over two to three days (usually across a weekend). The seminar, which is led by an agency social worker, provides an opportunity for potential foster carers to learn about the types of skills necessary to foster effectively.

It’s also not uncommon for foster agencies to require you to submit a number of references in order to help make a decision regarding your suitability as a prospective foster carer. In this case, the higher number of positive references you can submit, the better; appropriate individuals include colleagues from your job, any adult children you’ve raised that have since moved out of your home, or former partners that have first-hand knowledge of your parenting skills. Even friends that you have known for years or decades may have important insights that your foster agency will need to hear.

Differences In the Kinds of Placements You’ll Receive

In addition to the differences detailed above, the type of placements you’re likely to receive from a local authority may also be quite different than those you’ll receive from a foster agency. While each foster agency is different — as is each local authority — there are some things to keep in mind as a general rule of thumb when it comes to placements, such as:

Foster agencies tend to take their time: local authorities tend to provide placements much more rapidly than foster agencies. This is due to the generally higher level of care and attention that foster agencies take in matching foster carers with children in need of shelter and support. Sometimes it can be the difference between getting it done and getting it done right.

Children from foster agencies tend to be older: local authorities, because of the immense responsibilities they have to attend to the children they have in the system, focus on providing care to as many children as possible, as quickly as possible. With younger children easier to place, this results in foster agencies placing foster children who are a little bit older.

Foster agencies are best for children with special needs: Local authorities often don’t have the time or resources to find foster carers with the right selection of skills that are appropriate for children with special needs. Yet placing these children into care is often a speciality of foster agencies, thanks to their more specific vetting and training processes.

Foster agencies often draw from a larger area: Local authorities are, by definition, localised to a specific geographical area. Yet foster agencies often work with a number of different local authorities. This increases the number of possible placements to pull from. At the same time, this extended range may mean you may have slightly elevated travel responsibilities.

Other Important Differences: Your Level of Support

Demonstrating how the types of placements you’ll receive from a foster agency differ from those provided by a local authority illustrates many of the differences between the two entities. Overall, the results with a foster agency might be slightly slower, but the chances of being matched with a child that you can help support to the best of your abilities are significantly higher; in this way, you’re likely to make a bigger difference in the life of a foster child through foster agency placement.

Those aren’t the only important differences, though. It’s also true that the level of support you’ll receive as a foster carer through an agency, as compared to through a local authority is likely to differ as well. While both organisations have the utmost level of care in mind for the children in the system, because of resource and staff limitations the level of support from a local authority may sometimes not quite measure up to the support networks a foster agency has put in place.

Truth be told, a number of these elements are indeed highly developed. Foster agencies often begin with assigning a specific social worker that stays with you for the entirety of your career as a foster carer, providing you a friendly face and a sympathetic ear when it comes to answering questions. These social workers are highly knowledgeable, ensuring that even if he or she may not be able to resolve an issue you’re having, you’ll be referred to the right individual within the foster agency’s network.

Your social worker will also provide you with long-term support in identifying your goals as a foster carer. He or she will support your efforts to develop those skills as well. If you have specific skills you want to gain or improve to make you a more effective foster care provider, your social worker will provide specific pathways for you to gain those skills.

As invaluable the help your social worker can provide you in developing those skills, sometimes you need a different perspective. That’s where a mentorship scheme comes in. Foster agencies can match you with a senior foster carer with experience in working with that particular agency, offering you the opportunity to benefit from their hard-earned wisdom in a one-on-one environment. Being a foster carer can be challenging, but experienced foster parents can often allay any fears simply by providing you with their insight based on the children they’ve fostered in the past.

There’s even more advanced support that a foster agency can offer you. You can attend regular meet-ups with other local foster families, providing the chance to build relationships with other foster carers and the children in their charge. This offers opportunities for play dates for foster children with others that they have something in common with while also offering a wide range of friendships between adults that, likewise, share the commonality of being foster carers.

Finally, if you find yourself in need of a respite placement or simply have an issue that can’t be resolved easily, your foster agency will work tirelessly with you to resolve any and all situations or instances that arise. Again, each and every foster agency is different and is likely to offer you differing levels of support, but in general, the types of support available to you from an agency tend to compare favourably to the types of support that a local authority can offer its foster carers.

Compensation Differences Between Foster Agencies and Local Authorities

Being a foster carer can be — and often is — a full-time job. It’s only right, then, that you’re compensated for the crucially important role you’re playing in the development of a child in need. This compensation ensures that you have the financial resources to care for a foster child properly, and the government has issued guidance on the minimum compensation amounts foster carers should receive in return for providing safety and security for the children they’re looking after.

Whether you foster through your local authority or through a foster agency, you’re entitled to this minimum compensation amount on a weekly basis. The total reward differs depending on the number of children in your care, how old these children are, and where you live. Generally, you’ll receive more if you live in London or in the South East; you’ll also receive more if your foster children are older. Minimum weekly payments cap at around £220 as a result.

Yet it’s important that these payments are indeed minimums. Foster agencies can — and regularly do — provide higher weekly payments than local authorities, and these figures can be significantly greater. An example of this is how Perpetual Fostering routinely pays its foster carers between £300 and £650 per child every week.

The Rationale Behind the Difference in Compensation

Just as important, though, is to recognise why foster carers who work with a foster agency are routinely paid more than those who work with their local authority. There are, in fact, a number of reasons why a foster carer will be awarded higher weekly payments; these revolve around the particulars of the child being looked after, if they have any specific physical, mental, or emotional needs, and whether the foster carer has specialised skills or training that help meet those needs.

Some of the highest-paid foster carers also have the most responsibilities towards the children in their care. If a foster child requires round-the-clock medical attention, for example, a foster agency will ensure the child will be placed with a carer with the requisite skills and experience. Carers that meet those requirements are compensated for their expertise. Additionally, as such high levels of medical care often incur ancillary costs not borne by the NHS, a higher compensation rate is used to offset these costs as well.

All in all, the amount of additional compensation you’ll receive for fostering a specific child will depend on the needs of that child. However, with foster agencies typically placing older children with their foster carers — and children with needs that are more complex than not — it’s a safe bet to say that the majority of foster carers that work with foster agencies receive more compensation than those that work with local authorities directly. This is something to keep in mind if you’re looking into what the differences are between fostering through your local authority or through an agency.

The Case for Choosing a Foster Agency

Choosing to become a foster carer means entering a world where your care, compassion, and patience is needed by a number of children. Whether you decide to work with your local authority or an independent foster agency, you’re surely going to be changing lives for the better, which is one of the most rewarding things you can do. Either way, you’re providing much-needed help to children who need it.

Yet it needs to be said that there are some major differences between fostering on behalf of your local authority and a fostering agency. Choosing to foster through an agency can have a number of benefits, both to you and to the children within the foster system that need care. The differences between the types of children placed by local authorities and foster agencies, for example, means that older children that have more complex issues — foster children that are the most in need of a stable and caring environment — tend to be placed by agencies. If you’re looking to do the most good, this makes aligning yourself with a foster agency one of the best methods for doing so.

As a result, foster agencies are often much more better equipped to support you in your role as a foster carer. Support structures are almost universally more robust than those you will find in local authorities, simply because of the heightened need for those support structures. Better access to social workers, mentoring schemes, and large-scale foster family meet-ups translate to an entire web of support that you and your foster child can fall back upon when needed. While each local authority is different, it’s nearly guaranteed that they’re likely unable to compete with a foster agency in this regard.

Likewise, the weekly compensation awards you’ll receive from working as a foster carer through an agency are universally considered to be greater than those you would receive from a local authority. Placing children who tend to be generally older than those placed by local authorities — and those with more complex issues — means foster agencies provide much better compensation above and beyond the minimums recommended by the government.

Taking all these separate factors into account, the choice becomes increasingly clear. If you’re looking to make as big a difference in the lives of foster children as you can, choosing a foster agency will allow you to do so. The children placed with you are likely to have more complex needs that only you may be able to meet, the support you receive from the agency is likely deeper and more robust, and the compensation you’ll receive will likely be higher as well. All of these factors taken together translate into a more rewarding experience, not just for you but for any children you choose to foster.

Foster carers do some of the most important work there is: safeguarding the future for some of our most vulnerable and in need. Choose an independent foster agency today if you want to make the biggest difference in the life of a child who needs you.

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What Is It Really Like to Be a Foster Carer?

The life of a foster carer isn’t as different as you might suspect. It’s spent doing many of the same things that anyone does if they have the responsibility of looking after children. Making sure the children in your charge are fed and clothed properly, are sent off with their schoolwork done and ready, return home safely, and get to bed at a proper time is rather universal. The only difference with a foster carer is that the children in your care aren’t necessarily your own. It doesn’t mean you care for them any less.

That being said, being a foster carer is quite a bit of work. Not only do you have to go through a rigorous application process that necessitates you demonstrating your diligence and suitability by satisfying a number of requirements, but you also need to provide boundless compassion and patience for the children that are placed in your care. This can be difficult at times, especially when your placement is coming from a particularly challenging situation or background.

Yet even as you face these challenges, the rewards of being a foster carer are just as boundless. Yes, it is true that you do receive compensation for the crucial work you do in providing the care for children that need it. And yes, many foster carers leave their previous careers behind in order to care for foster children full-time. Yet the financial rewards are often secondary to the intense emotional fulfilment of providing a safe harbour for a child who often needs it most desperately. Knowing you’ve made a positive difference in the life of a foster child, even if just for a few short weeks or months, is a feeling that lasts for the rest of your life. Here’s what you need to know about what it’s truly like to be a foster carer.

Beginning the Process is Demanding

Applying to become a foster carer isn’t like trying to get any other job. You don’t just show up in your best outfit with your CV and have a chat with the hiring manager — if you expect to be given the awesome responsibility of providing care for children in need, you’re going to have to prove yourself thoroughly and completely.

It all begins when you make an enquiry to either a local authority or an independent foster agency (IFA). It’s often recommended to pursue becoming a foster carer through an IFA, as these agencies often have better support resources for those new to fostering. They also tend to provide better compensation, especially since IFAs tend to place children who are in more need of help. In either case, you’ll sit down with a social worker for an introductory meeting where you’ll be able to have some basic questions answered.

After this initial meeting, the process begins in earnest. You’ll have to prove a number of things to the agency if you’re serious about being a foster carer before your evaluation can go forward. First and foremost, you’ll need sufficient living space in your home or flat to accommodate a foster child — you’ll need one empty bedroom for every child you wish to foster. You’ll also have to take a trip to your GP and get a clean bill of health in the form of an NHS health check. This shows you’re physically able to care for a foster child. Next, you’ll be required to show evidence that your financial health is in good order as well, as you can’t become a foster carer if you have a bankruptcy on record.

Qualifications Are Intensive

Clearing these initial hurdles are most certainly the easy part of being a foster carer. The rest of the qualifications can be quite intensive. There is a reason for this, of course, as only those most dedicated to providing patient, compassionate care to foster children are the best suited to become foster carers. Progressing through this qualification process certainly proves that you’ve got what it takes to become an excellent foster carer!

The process involves a multitude of steps and requires you to attend meetings, provide detailed background information, and submit loads of paperwork. It begins with collecting a number of references for your agency to peruse in order to gain a better understanding of who you are as a potential carer. These references can be from work colleagues, long-time family friends, former partners that helped you raise children, or even adult children who have since moved out. There’s no minimum number of references required, but it goes without saying that the more the better.

You’ll also have to demonstrate your willingness to learn the requisite skills that come in handy as a foster carer. This often requires a weekend of your time, as you’ll be asked to attend a Skills to Foster Training seminar over a period of two to three days. These group seminars are led by experienced social workers and are attended by a number of hopeful foster carers all going through the process together. The skills you learn in such a seminar help to form a solid foundation for your career as a foster carer, and meeting others who are progressing through the process of becoming a foster carer can also be beneficial in the future.

The next thing you’ll need to get sorted is an enhanced disclosure from the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS). This bit of paperwork is a requirement for anyone who will be working with children, so it’s not just foster carers that need to jump through this particular hoop — if you were to work in a school, in a creche, or in a nursery, you would also need an enhanced disclosure from the DBS. It’s a not-so-subtle reminder that being a foster carer is most certainly a job — one with the potential of being quite rewarding and fulfilling, but a job nonetheless.

The biggest and most intensive step in the process, though, is most certainly the last. You will need to undergo a fostering assessment administered by the British Association of Adoption and Fostering (BAAF). This BAAF assessment is an intensive process that begins with an in-depth conversation with a social worker. This step in the process is slow, as it takes anywhere from four to six months to complete an assessment.

The last thing that’s required of you comes after your BAAF assessment is completed, and it’s related to it: you’ll have to face the music. A Fostering Panel will review your complete application and will ask you any questions they have about your assessment. It’s not an adversarial situation, as the panelists simply want to ensure you’re the best fit for the job, but it can be nerve-wracking. Once the panel is concluded, it will submit its final recommendation to an Agency Decision Maker, who ultimately either selects you for a role of foster carer or not.

Moving from Applicant to Fully-Fledged Foster Carer

Being notified that you’ve been selected as a foster carer is always a cause for celebration. It’s an exciting time to be sure, especially as you could receive your first placement at any time. Typically you’ll receive that placement within a few short weeks. If you’ve become a foster carer through a foster agency, you may be waiting a bit longer, as agencies often invest more time and resources in matching foster children with carers that have the appropriate skill sets to provide them the proper support.

When a foster child arrives in your care, it’s only natural for there to be some adjustment on both the part of you and the child. This depends largely on the age of the foster child and their previous experiences, but there are a number of factors at play as well. A foster child with special needs requires extra care, whether that comes in the form of physical accommodation or emotional support. Regardless of the specific particulars, your new foster child will need plenty of compassion and patience from you and any other members of your immediate family.

You’ll soon notice, though, that once your foster placement finishes settling in, it will soon become business as usual. Even if you do have a foster child with special needs, you’ll fall into an easy daily routine, revolving around providing for your placement. You’ll take him or her to school, to outside appointments with GPs or specialists, take them shopping for the things they need or want, and spend quality time with them, just as you would with a biological child. It won’t always be smooth sailing, but that’s to be expected; no caregiver can say otherwise.

You’ll Have A Full and Robust Support System

Being a foster carer is a demanding job, even when the children in your care are doing well. That’s why agencies provide full and robust support systems to ensure everything goes well. While the specifics of what type of support you can expect can differ from one agency to another, there are some commonalities that are relatively universal, and they include the following.

Your social worker is your first point of contact. You’re likely to have the same social worker throughout your career as a foster parent, which means that you’ll develop an excellent working relationship with him or her. They will be able to answer any questions you have about a given situation. If they can’t, they will know where to direct you for more specialised help.

You’ll get crucial skills support. In addition to being your first point of contact, your social worker will also provide you with opportunities to develop the skills important to you as a foster carer. You’ll work together to formulate a long-term skills development plan that you can progress through at your own pace, on your own terms, with their aid.

You can benefit from an experienced mentor. Agencies often have mentorship schemes where new foster carers are matched with more experienced carers in order to provide one-on-one support. The insight these experienced mentors provide can offer you unique perspectives or strategies that help you grow into your role and become a more effective foster carer.

You’ll have access to a wide network of fellow carers. One-on-one mentoring from an experienced carer is highly beneficial, but a network of peers to pull support from is an added benefit. Agencies often organise monthly meet-ups of foster families in your area to build relationships between foster children and their carers, as no one knows the unique circumstances of fostering like fellow foster families.

You will have access to advanced support when needed. Sometimes unforeseen circumstances occur; it’s just a fact of life. If your social worker and your mentor can’t help, and neither can your fellow foster families, you’ll need the support of an advanced kind. Whether this means at-home visits or other types of extended support, your agency will ensure you and your foster child are provided for.

You’ll be given respite opportunities. Being a foster carer is still a job — and you’re still entitled to some time away from work. With foster carers often not having the same resources as biological families in the form of having relatives that can provide a bit of relief from the rigors of parenting, you’ll receive two weeks of paid respite a year to help you stay fresh and performing well in your role.

Yes, You’ll Also Be Compensated for Your Time and Effort

In addition to all of these support services, foster carers also receive generous compensation for their time and effort. Yes, you are paid to take care of foster children. How much you earn, however, is dependent on a number of factors, all of which influence the final amount of compensation you receive for the important work of providing a safe haven for children who need it, sometimes quite desperately.

Foster carers receive compensation for every week they foster a child. This compensation is figured individually per child in your care, as the particulars of one foster child, such as their age and their specific needs, will differ from another. There are minimum figures that the government has set in order to standardise the practice, though. These minimums are generally higher if you live in the South East or in London due to the higher cost of living in these regions. The baseline minimums are as follows:

For babies, weekly minimums begin at £127 if you’re located outside of the South East or London. This figure increases to £140 and £146 respectively.

For pre-primary-aged children, the minimum rate begins at £130 and increases to £144 and £149 for carers located in the South East and in London.

The pattern continues for primary school-aged children, with the three compensation tiers being £143, £160, and 168.

Foster carers with children between the ages of 11 and 15 are entitled to weekly minimums ranging between £164, £182, and £190.

Finally, a foster carer looking after 16 or 17-year-olds will earn a minimum of £191, £214, or £222.

These are the figures for the 2018-2019 financial year. The government reviews minimum compensation guidelines every April, which means they are subject to change periodically. At the same time, these minimum guidelines are just that — minimum — and you’re likely to receive more than that every week, sometimes substantially more, depending on a number of factors.

Earning More than the Bare Minimum

If you are a foster carer, you’re likely earning more than bare minimum allowances, especially if you foster through an agency. Depending on the specific skill set you bring to the table your compensation will increase a commensurate amount, as this enables you to provide much more specialised care to foster children who need it. Additionally, foster children with especially demanding needs, such as intensive medical care or who have specific accommodation requirements, also provide foster carers with higher compensation amounts to ensure any financial requirements of that care are provided for effectively.

The end result is that foster carers almost always earn much more than the minimum. In some cases, such as with Perpetual Fostering, foster carer compensation can range from £300 to as high as £650 per week per child. In instances where your foster children need especially intense care it makes sense to be compensated so well, as it’s likely you will be providing foster care as a full-time job at that point.

On the subject of benefits and compensation, it’s also important to note that foster carers receive some substantial tax benefits as well. You receive a tax exemption on the first £10,000 you earn as a carer every year, plus up to a maximum of an additional £10,400 to £13,000 per child you foster. This second bit of tax relief is dependent on how many weeks of the year you foster that child, which makes the figure variable.

The Final Word on What It’s Like to Be a Foster Carer

There’s a lot that goes into being a foster carer. It begins with the process of becoming a carer in the first place, which requires you to prove to a local authority or foster agency that you’re a good fit for the job. Since fostering is a long-term commitment, it’s only fitting that this process can take up to six months as you provide your agency with all the information they need to make an informed decision as to your suitability.

Being a foster carer also means seeking out training for the skills you need to help the children you’re looking after effectively. This skills training begins during your application process and continues throughout your tenure as a foster carer, as you’re likely to run into situations that will require you to gain specialised knowledge and expertise.

Meanwhile, just as anyone who cares for their own children, you’re likely to run into situations that getting advice from others would be beneficial. Foster carers can turn to their agency social workers, their experienced mentors, and their fellow foster families nearby for advice or aid, and doing so regularly helps you become a better foster carer. It also provides a better life for the children that are placed with you.

The fact that you are compensated so generously for being a foster carer is a major benefit. Knowing that you’re unlikely to run into any financial difficulties whilst providing care to a foster child makes it easier to provide that care as effectively as possible. This helps your foster child grow as you aid in preparing them for adulthood without any distractions.

There is always a measure of uncertainty when it comes to fostering children. While you will work closely with your social worker on placement preferences, the social dynamics that arise between you and your foster child are always different. Some foster children may only be in your care for a few days or weeks; others may be more longer-term, lasting for several months at a time. Eventually, though, your time together is bound to come to an end as the child you’re fostering moves on to the next phase of their growth.

This can be an emotional time for all. It’s common for foster children to integrate nearly completely into an existing foster family, growing close to other adults and children already in your home. Moving on is never easy, especially in these situations where bonds have been established and run deep. By the same token, however, parting ways with a foster child that has become part of your family can leave some of the warmest and most cherished memories behind. These memories can easily last a lifetime, making the act of being a foster carer one of the most deeply rewarding jobs you will ever have.

It takes a lot to be an effective foster carer. You need compassion, patience, and diligence in spades to open your heart to children in need. The rewards, though, are worth every moment. That’s what being a foster carer is truly like.

  The post What Is It Really Like to Be a Foster Carer? appeared first on Perpetual Fostering.

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What Is Fostering a Child Really Like?

The act of becoming a qualified foster carer is a long endeavour. It involves, quite literally, undergoing months of intensive preparation and being subjected to exacting scrutiny. Yet it’s often true that prospective foster carers, after having their first experience fostering a child, remark that the preparation process pales in comparison to what fostering a child is really like.

By the same token, however, foster parents also say that the act of fostering a child is as deeply rewarding as it may be challenging. Opening your home and, more often than not, your heart as well, to a child or young person in need of care doesn’t just have the potential to change the lives of the children in your care; oftentimes, it changes your own life as well — and for the better!

The Qualification Process

No discussion of what fostering a child is really like would be complete without at least a cursory look at the qualification process. All foster carers need to go through this process, which has been designed to ensure you will be able to provide for a foster child’s needs adequately, as a matter of law.

There are a number of straightforward requirements that you will need to meet to be considered for a foster carer role. While you’ll receive pay in compensation for fostering a child, you’ll need to be financially stable prior to taking on the responsibilities of a foster carer and provide proof of such. The absence of any financial bankruptcy proceedings on your behalf will have that sorted.

You will also need to offer proof of your physical ability to care for children, especially since many in the foster care system may have special needs of their own. The rigours of being a foster parent can take a toll on even the healthiest adult, so you will need to show you are healthy enough to handle being a foster carer. This is accomplished by going to your GP and getting an NHS health check.

Of course, there is one final thing that you will need to have before you’ll even be considered as a potential foster carer: a spare room in your home for every child you wish to foster. No foster agency is going to begin putting you through its vetting process without being provided the satisfaction that you have the physical space for a long-term, if temporary, addition to your family.

Vetting and Education for Prospective Foster Carers

After providing the preliminary qualifications of being physically healthy, financially healthy, and having enough space to accommodate a foster child, the lion’s share of the vetting and education process takes place. There are a number of steps you’ll have to go through, including:

Providing references to your foster agency: If you have adult children that have since left the nest, former partners that helped you raise children in the past, work colleagues, relatives, or long-time friends, they may be asked to provide detailed references describing their views of your parenting abilities.

Attending the Skills to Foster Training seminar: This two to three-day intensive workshop, usually held over a weekend and facilitated by a social worker from the foster agency, will provide you with some excellent preliminary skills that will aid you greatly if you’re selected to foster.

Undergoing a BAAF Fostering Assessment: The British Association of Adoption and Fostering requires all applicants to be officially assessed by a social worker for suitability. This is a long process that can take anywhere from four months to six months. Upon completion, the social worker will present their findings to an independent Fostering Panel for a final review and approval recommendation.

Receiving an Enhanced Disclosure from the DBS: The Disclosure and Barring Service requires anyone working with children to undergo their certification process. This isn’t just for potential foster carers: it’s also required of nursery, school, and creche workers as well.

Enduring a review and final approval recommendation from a Fostering Panel: You’ll have a chance to personally present your case to a panel of five or more experts as to why you should be considered for a foster carer role. While it’s not quite an interrogation, you are likely to be asked to answer any questions the panelists may have regarding your application.

After progressing through all these steps, your case will be reviewed by the Agency Decision Maker. He or she reviews the panel’s findings and gives you the final answer of yea or nay. This, combined with the four to six-month wait time that accompanies your fostering assessment, tends to be nerve-wracking indeed. But once you’re selected, then this opens up a whole new world to you: the world of the foster carer.

Between Selection and Placement

Once selected, there will likely be quite some time before you’re matched with a foster child. This is an excellent opportunity to begin preparing yourself for the journey to a rewarding role as foster carer. You will be able to build on what you’ve already received during the Skills to Foster Training seminar with access to a one-on-one mentoring scheme, regular foster parent group meetups, and other support from your foster agency’s social worker.

You’ll also be able to rely on your foster agency for advanced help as well. You’ll be supported in case of an emergency or if you need respite. Additionally, your fostering social worker will provide individual development planning in order for you to pursue your personal goals. Having access to all of these support structures will prove to be invaluable once you receive your first placement.

Still, the nature of being a foster carer means doing your best to prepare for situations that are, by definition, almost impossible to prepare for. Many times you won’t know the precise circumstances of a foster child’s placement with you, nor will you know what they may have gone through or been subjected to immediately prior to him or her showing up on your doorstep. Yet despite not knowing the particulars, you can rest assured of one thing: it’s likely this child had been plunged into chaos. It’s now your job to provide him or her a safe harbour and to allow them to grow towards their full potential in a warm and welcoming environment.

Actively Fostering Children is a Vastly Divergent Experience

Upon being approved and accepted as a foster carer, you could receive your first placement any time. Some foster carers are called to serve in just a few weeks; others may be waiting a bit longer until they’re asked to step up and provide care to a foster child in need.

No matter how long you wait, the process is likely to be a difficult one, fraught with anticipation and perhaps even a little anxiety. This is completely natural and to be expected. The moment you do receive that call, however, is the last time you should panic, as you’re about to receive a child into your home and care.

There is a wide range of types of children that you can receive as a foster carer. They can be as young as a few days old or they can already be a teenager — or any age in-between. You may have them in your care for just a few days, such as in the case of providing respite for another foster parent, or you may have them for months or even years; it’s all relative on the particular circumstances surrounding the child and your own individual capabilities.

In other words, the fact that there is little that can be said about the definitive foster carer experience in itself speaks volumes. Each foster parent’s experience is likely to be vastly different than another in any number of ways, but whatever your personal experience as a foster carer ends up being, there’s a strong likelihood that you are going to need loads of patience and compassion — and the help of others that know what it’s like.

It Won’t Always Be Plain Sailing

Why the emphasis on patience and compassion? Simply because the life of a foster carer can be more than a bit rough on you. Many find themselves highly challenged by the situations they encounter while caring for a child that has been through traumatic events in their past, as this can manifest in behavioural issues that may be distressing to witness or help manage.

In situations where a foster child may have specific support needs that you are not equipped to meet, the child may be placed with a different carer. This is likely to be a highly emotional event not just for the child but for you as well. However, you must remember that if you have tried your level best and have still come up short, having a child placed with different foster carers with the specialized skills he or she needs is in the best interests of that child.

Likewise, it can be difficult to say goodbye to a very special little boy or girl that you have been fostering for an extended period, especially if he or she has become fully integrated into your existing family over that time. Again it is imperative to keep in mind that foster children that move on are always doing so in order to progress towards their goal of developing the skills and knowledge they need to become adults — and you can be proud of the role that you played in doing so, as your care and support has been an integral part of that process!

Your Need for Support Will Be Your One Unifying Factor

Whatever the circumstances surrounding your foster child and their need for care may be, there is one thing that will be universal: these children need safety and stability. Providing that to them can be an sometimes challenging, especially if the child or young person placed with you has been through traumatic experiences prior to being placed in your care. This makes the job of foster carer a complex one; there’s a reason you get two weeks of paid respite a year, after all!

Thankfully, your foster agency will have a whole raft of support services, starting with your social worker, who is your first point of contact. He or she can answer important questions you may have or, barring that, can put you into contact with someone who can. Your social worker can also help you identify skills you may need to develop in order to make you a better foster career and provide you with avenues for honing those skills.

While your social worker and the tools he or she will have at their disposal will undoubtedly be indispensable, the majority of your support is likely to come from other foster carers. One-on-one mentoring with experienced foster carers will provide you with a unique and knowledgeable point of view that can offer insights you may have missed, and group networking amongst other foster families provide opportunities for play dates and the ability to support one another during challenging times.

The Final Word on What Fostering a Child Is Really Like

Becoming a foster carer is a long process that involves passing a raft of criteria’s and assessments, learning and honing the types of skills needed to support a foster child’s development, and then waiting patiently until receiving a foster child placement. That is, as we’ve already discussed, the easy part; the challenge comes from that child is placed into your care. Thanks to your chosen foster agency, however, you’ll never have to cope with any aspect of being a foster carer without an entire network of help. Support is always just a phone call away.

Nearly every foster child will require extra care and attention in the form of compassion and patience, though it’s only natural that some will require less than others. These children all touch your lives in various ways, and a child leaving your care will always be an emotional moment in your life. The rewards of helping guide a young boy or girl in need often far outweigh any of the challenges you face in providing a home, however temporary, for that child, and the memories you build together as a foster carer will last you for the rest of your life.

The post What Is Fostering a Child Really Like? appeared first on Perpetual Fostering.

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New Year’s Resolutions for the Whole Family

The new year is nearly here, and many people are making new year’s resolutions and promises about what they will and won’t do next year. Though many resolutions fail, either because they are too ambitious or people are simply too lazy, making small changes and setting easy to manage expectations can lead to healthy habits that will stick.

Having other people holding you accountable works wonders in sticking with resolutions, so creating them as a group can really help. Here are some great ideas for resolutions for the whole family that you can easily keep.

Have some quality family time every day

Our lives are extremely busy and between work, school, clubs, hobbies, and chores, it can be hard for the family to spend much quality time with each other. This is especially hard with older children, because if they’re not out with friends during the weekend, they’re usually sleeping or in their rooms playing computer games or watching TV.

Scheduling a little bit of time each day – even if it’s only thirty minutes – can really help you feel closer as a family. It could be anything, from a short evening walk or trip to the park, to sitting and watching your favourite TV show or reading a book together.

Try to eat dinner together as often as possible

As we already mentioned, families often have busy schedules. This can make it difficult for everybody to eat dinner together. However, make a rule that everybody eats their evening meal together, at the table. This may mean making dinner a little later, and giving the kids a healthy snack to tide them over until later. This meal time ritual gives you the chance to make sure that everybody is eating what they should be, and also gives you a good chance to catch up and find out how everybody’s day was.

Schedule a weekly ‘family meeting’

Everybody wants to feel like they’re being heard, especially children and teenagers. Sometime’s people’s voices can get a little lost in the chaos, and children can feel frustrated that nobody listens to what they have to say. Scheduling a time for everybody to sit down and discuss any issues they are having will help promote healthy conflict resolution and should lead to fewer arguments and fights. Go around the table and give everybody a chance to have their say, and then work together to solve the problem.

Plan a fun day out at least once a month

We all need something to look forward to, especially kids. Plan something fun at least once a month that everybody can get excited for. It’s also a good idea to let different people choose what you do each time, so that everybody feels included. It doesn’t have to be expensive; many museums and art galleries have free entry and lots of fun special events for kids, or you could drive to the beach or go on a hike and have a picnic. 

Limit Screen Time

It’s tempting –  especially in the cold winter months – to just come home from work or school and crash in front of the TV or computer. However, there is such a thing as too much screen time. Though this will probably not be a popular choice at first (especially with teenagers!), try to limit screen time in your home. An easy way to do this is by having an ‘unplugged’ hour, when you turn off the TV and put down phones, and do something that doesn’t require electricity for sixty minutes. This time could be spent reading, learning a new skill such as musical instrument, going for a walk or doing another sport, or playing board games.

Get Creative in the Kitchen

We can all eat healthier, and what better way to get kids interested in healthy food than introducing them to it in the kitchen. Make it a goal to have the kids help prepare at least one meal a week, and get them to choose a healthy recipe they’d like to try. They’re much more likely to attempt to each something healthy if they helped prepare it. Of course, occasionally let them make something more fun such as cakes or another kind of dessert!

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What Benefits Can I Claim If I’m A Foster Carer?

If you’re caring, determined and looking to make a real difference, fostering could be perfect for you. The emotional rewards of supporting children when they need you the most is often the main driver for foster carers.

  It’s important not to forget the financial side of things though. If you’re the special kind of person who can become a great foster carer, it can be a rewarding career on all fronts. Both in terms of making a positive impact and thanks to strong financial incentives.

  In this article we’ll explore the allowances and support on offer and how they can work alongside existing benefits as well.

  If you’re looking for a quick reference point follow the content links below:

How Does Fostering Affect My Current Benefits?

Means Tested Benefits

Do I Receive Any Other Benefits As A Foster Carer?

In Summary

  How Does Fostering Affect My Current Benefits?

  Whether you’re a single carer or bringing foster children into your own family, you need to consider the benefits you’re entitled to. Becoming a foster carer could alter any benefits you’re currently receiving as well.

  Let’s explore the most common benefit entitlements currently available and the impact foster care can have on them.

  Child Benefit

  A regular question we come across is “can I claim child benefit when fostering?”

  Put simply, you can continue to claim child benefit for your own children and other children that live with you, however you can’t claim for children that you’re fostering. That’s because you get a maintenance allowance and reward payment for each foster child in your care.

  Age and gender is also important in terms of how often you’ll have a child placed with you. For example, if you’re happy to take teenagers as well and younger children, you’ll find your fostering services in very high demand. This will have a direct impact on the consistency of your payments.

  Disability Living Allowance (DLA) and Carers Allowance

  If you start fostering a child under 16 who is currently claiming, or should be claiming, DLA, you’re entitled to this benefit. You’ll need to get in touch with the Disability Benefit Unit to make sure everything is in order.

  In addition, if a child in your care is entitled to the middle rate care component of DLA you’ll be able to claim carers allowance too. This works for each child in care, meaning a separate allowance is paid per person.

  Means Tested Benefits

  The status of being an “approved foster carer” has a slightly different impact on means tested benefits, in comparison to being employed. It’s worth noting when you become a foster carer you might still be able to claim means tested benefits.

  The most common means tested benefits we get asked about include:

  Income Support and Working Tax Credits

If you work less than 16 hours a week, income support is a benefit you might be entitled to as a foster carer.

  Alternatively, you might deem foster caring as work or have an additional income stream. That can entitle you to claim working tax credit.

  Both can be extremely helpful and are well worth exploring in more detail. Many foster carers will benefit from one or the other.

  Job Seekers Allowance

The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) doesn’t officially treat fostering in the same way as work. That means if you’re actively seeking employment you might be able to claim, or continue claiming, job seekers allowance. You need to make sure you’re available to work 40 hours per week whilst waiting for a placement. This reduces to 16 hours per week if you’re looking after a foster child. Suffice to say you need to have at least reasonable prospects of securing work and be actively seeking employment to claim this particular benefit.

  Employment And Support Allowance (ESA)

If you’re ill or disabled but still able to become an “approved foster carer” you may also be able to claim ESA. This benefit is designed to provide financial support if you can’t work. It will also deliver assistance to get you back to work, if possible.

  Council Tax Reduction And Housing Benefit

Generally speaking, if you’re on housing benefits or get reduced council tax these aren’t normally affected when you become a foster carer. If you’re a tenant in the private rented sector your housing benefit will be based on where you live and how many rooms you require. Similarly if you’re under the pension credit age and living in the social rented sector, rooms will play a part in your entitlement.

  It’s worth noting that for both you’ll get an extra room entitlement when you have a foster child under your roof. This is also the case while you’re waiting for a placement in the first 12 months after becoming an “approved foster carer”.

  Need More Information?

  If you need any further advice about means tested benefits and whether you’ll be allowed to maintain or add entitlements when you become a foster carer, you should visit gov.uk for more information.

  Do I Receive Any Other Benefits As A Foster Carer?

  Not all fostering agencies are the same and it’s important to pick wisely to maximise your income. Choosing to become a foster carer through Perpetual Fostering means you’ll gain many additional benefits.

  You’ll be self-employed through ourselves and need to complete your own tax returns and national insurance contributions, giving you added flexibility and freedom for other business interests and work. That said, you’ll still benefit from a two-week, paid, break, along with other arranged down-time too.

  We also endeavour to help our foster carers become the very best they can be. It’s important that you never feel like you’re on your own. That’s why we allocate each fostering household an experienced social worker to support you 24/7. By undertaking regular home visits and daily calls, we’ll make sure you’re fully supported at all times.

  A final thing to take into account, in addition to all the other benefits you could be entitled to, is the fact that you will be paid per child. For example, if you’re looking after two children you’ll be entitled to two lots of maintenance allowance and reward payments.

  In Summary

  We hope you’ve found this article helpful and are now even more excited by the prospect of becoming a foster carer. It’s important to understand that fostering might not have the negative impact on your benefits that you perhaps thought it would. Helping young people integrate into a loving environment is a top priority for local authorities and national government. With money being invested and pay provided for each placed child, there’s never been a better time to apply to become a registered foster carer.

  In addition to being a fantastically rewarding career, it’s evident that fostering can also make excellent financial sense.

  For more information take a look at our in-depth guide by clicking here.  

  The post What Benefits Can I Claim If I’m A Foster Carer? appeared first on Perpetual Fostering.

from Perpetual Fostering https://perpetualfostering.co.uk/insights/what-benefits-can-i-claim-if-im-a-foster-carer/

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Can I Foster? Top Tips on Becoming a Foster Carer in the UK

“Can I foster?” It’s a question we hear loads of times. Prospective foster carers with big hearts but not much information otherwise on what goes into becoming a foster parent often ask that question, along with many others related to the entire process. The truth is there is much that goes into meeting the requirements for fostering. Here’s an in-depth look into what it takes and how to go about starting your journey towards foster parenting.

The Foster Carer Manifesto

If you’ve begun to ask the question “can I foster” of yourself, well done you — you’ve begun down a long, challenging, and potentially rewarding path. There’s any number of children in the UK who are in need of foster parenting, and wanting to throw your hat into the ring in order to become one of those much-needed foster carers takes courage, dedication, compassion, and patience.

This is, of course, not quite so different than being the parent of a biological child, at least when it comes to mindset. However, it takes a special person, with a special mindset, to foster a child or young person. Because of their varied needs, foster children will often require a foster carer or foster parent to undertake additional emotional responsibilities; you may need to demonstrate even higher levels of emotional support towards a foster child as a result.

Yet your typical foster carer knows these things, perhaps almost on an instinctual level. You don’t say to yourself “can I foster” without thinking long and hard about what it means to take on such a responsibility to a child or young person in need. Becoming a foster carer isn’t a hobby or a job so much as it’s a career or a calling; only those that are supremely dedicated to the idea of providing children in need with the kind of physical, social, and emotional support they need to grow into happy and healthy adult members of society.

The Technical Requirements of What it Takes to Become a Foster Carer

Having the right attitude and emotional approach to the important job of becoming a foster parent is, admittedly, of crucial importance to the foster care process. At the same time, though, there are some technicalities that you’ll have to satisfy if you do wish to become involved in the lives of children as their foster carer. These technical requirements are easy enough to satisfy, though, as they are based on ensuring a foster child will have his or her basic needs met if you do foster them.

First and foremost, you will need a spare room in your house or your flat that can accommodate a foster child or a young person. No foster agency in its right mind would ever allow a child under its charge to live with a new foster family that doesn’t have adequate space in their home for an additional member, so if you do wish to foster you’ll need to ensure you’ve got a dedicated bedroom ready and waiting.

Secondly, becoming a foster carer requires you to be in relatively good health, both physically and financially. This only makes sense, as it’s difficult to care for any child unless you are healthy enough to take on the responsibilities of child care yourself. In order to determine this, you may be required to receive a successful health check from your GP. You’ll also have to show evidence of never having declared bankruptcy. As it’s not uncommon for foster children to have specialised medical needs themselves, making sure you as a foster carer are physically and financially capable is even more important — even though you will be provided with weekly allowances for every child you foster.

Additionally, many foster agencies make it an important point to review a number of references as a technical requirement for becoming a foster parent. The most relevant references will come from former partners that you helped raise children with and adult children of your own that have since moved out, but other relatives, colleagues, or even long-time friends are appropriate references.

Foster agencies provide skills training during this time as well. This consists of an intensive “Skills to Foster Training” seminar delivered over a 2-3 day span, most often scheduled for over a weekend, delivered in-house by a foster agency to applicants in the assessment process.

An additional requirement, one that takes the most time to satisfy, is to endure a period of fostering assessment by a social worker as required by the British Association of Adoption and Fostering (BAAF). Such a Fostering Assessment is a long-term endeavour, one that can take between four and six months. Once the social worker completes their assessment, it is presented to an independent Fostering Panel for a final review and approval recommendation.

Next, you will need to become certified by the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS). You’ll need an Enhanced Disclosure from the DBS, as will anyone living in your home over the age of 16. If this seems excessive, remember that a DBS disclosure is required of anyone who works with children in the UK. That includes anyone who works at a creche, a nursery, or a school. Becoming a foster carer is still a job, after all, perhaps the most important one of the bunch.

Finally comes the biggest and most nerve-wracking step: being subjected to review (and hopefully final approval) by a Fostering Panel. These independent panels are made up of at least five individuals, and they play a crucial role in determining whether you’ll become a foster carer or not. You’ll meet with this panel in order to answer any final questions these members may have concerning your application.

It’s the job of a panel to be thorough, but it’s not as if you’re standing trial — panelists know what a tough job it is to be a foster carer, and they want what’s best for not just a foster child but for you as well. Think of it as less of a grueling ordeal but instead one last time to showcase all of your positive attributes, such as compassion and patience, that will enable you to be an outstanding foster carer. If the panel agrees, you’ll be given its final recommendation to proceed. At this point, it’s up to the Agency Decision Maker, who receives the panel’s recommendation, to make the final decision in favour of your foster carer status.

So to review, here are the technical requirements of becoming a foster parent:

Have a spare room in your home

Be in good health

Have appropriate references

Attend the Skills to Foster Training seminar

Undergo a BAAF Fostering Assessment

Receive an Enhanced Disclosure from the DBS

Review and final approval recommendation from a Fostering Panel

At that point, a final decision will be made on whether you’ll be selected as a foster carer. This is an exceedingly thorough process, especially with the requirement of a BAAF Fostering Assessment, so you can expect it to take as long as six months before you’re informed if you’ve been selected as a foster carer. Once you’ve satisfied these requirements for fostering, though, you have the opportunity to use that time to prepare yourself, both emotionally and mentally, for being a foster carer.

The Preparation Process

The foster care process involves more preparation than just getting your paperwork sorted and cleaning up your spare bedroom in anticipation of a long-term guest. You’ll also need to ensure you’re prepared to take on the awesome responsibility of fostering a child or young person on their journey to adulthood. This process can be self-guided, but many foster agencies provide intensive skill seminars to help you on your way.

This process begins shortly after you ask yourself “can I foster” and involves meeting with a social worker. Conducted either over the phone or in person, this chat allows you to get any questions you may have about the foster care process at the very beginning before moving on to more substantial preparations. Once you’re satisfied with your initial answers (and after you satisfy the technical requirements discussed above), you can then move onto the skills preparation portion.

Since the final selection process does take several months, you’ll have a number of opportunities for skills education. Foster agencies typically offer intensive courses that you can participate in during this waiting period; these courses take place over the course of several days and will offer you the opportunity to attend group sessions, led by experienced social workers. These sessions typically consist of in-depth, directed discussions about a number of different topics related to becoming a foster carer, including:

The role foster carers play in helping foster children

What can lead to children coming into care

The type of support foster children may need

The role foster carers play in promoting positive identities for foster children

The wide support network that foster carers can call upon, and work together with, to promote the wellbeing of a foster child

How to manage transitions, promote good behaviour, set boundaries, and build relationships with a foster child

Methods for integrating a foster child into an existing network of friends and family members

The goal set for you, as foster carers, is to not just provide support to a child or young person in need of care. It’s also to provide room for a foster child to exhibit positive growth during the entire process, and that often means developing these relevant skills yourself to facilitate that process.

What You Can Expect Upon Selection

With standards set high in order to protect the interests of children and young people in need of being fostered, not everyone who asks themselves “can I foster” and then applies to become a foster carer becomes one. However, if you are selected to become a foster parent there are a number of things, both initially and ongoing, that you can expect to happen.

First and foremost, it’s time to learn that you don’t have to go it alone in your journey to becoming a foster parent. In fact, when you partner with a foster agency to become a foster carer you gain access to an impressive raft of support structures, such as the following:

Access to a social worker: Upon selection, you’ll be assigned a social worker to guide you through the process of matching you with a child to foster. It doesn’t stop there, though, as you’ll be able to call on this social worker for guidance and support throughout the entirety of your foster carer experience.

Individual development planning: One of the many resources your social worker can provide for you comes in the form of personal development planning to help you grow as a carer and as a person. As foster carers come from all backgrounds and all walks of life, this planning process can help fill in gaps in your skillset and aid in developing you in directions you never thought possible.

Access to a mentoring scheme: You never have to go it alone when it comes to navigating the world of foster caring. It’s typical to be assigned a mentor, in the form of an experienced foster carer, to buddy up with in order to provide you with a unique perspective on the types of issues that only other foster carers are likely to have experienced.

Regular foster carer group meetups: No one is an island. Foster carers need wide networks, and that’s why foster agencies either encourage or outright organise monthly meetups of foster parents and the children in their care. From providing play date opportunities to developing a wider array of relationships outside the mentoring scheme, such periodic forums are ideal for making the foster care process more fulfilling.

Access to even more advanced support: Sometimes you’re going to need even more help. That’s only natural; you won’t be able to anticipate every event and issue that crops up. In instances where your assigned social worker or your mentoring buddy aren’t sufficient help, you’ll also typically have access to advanced help in the form of at-home support visits.

Regular respite: It’s a tough job, being a foster carer. Many foster parents don’t have the respite opportunities that others have, for example in the form of relatives such as grandparents, so foster agencies regularly offer respite services, including up to two weeks paid respite a year. This vital self-care provides you with the ability to be there more successfully for any foster children under your care.

How Much Do Foster Carers Get Paid?

It takes more than compassion and dedication to raise a child. It doesn’t matter if it’s a foster child or not — any parent will tell you that there are certain financial requirements as well. The costs associated with the care and feeding of a child or young person are manifold, and they range from clothing and school supplies to simply giving them with the ability to enjoy their lives by providing them with toys and other entertainment options.

That’s why foster agencies ensure that those that take on the heavy responsibility of fostering a child receive compensation in order to support his or her mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing. This compensation can and does vary according to a number of different factors, many of which are set in place by the government, with the most notable being a weekly allowance that foster carers are entitled to for doing the crucial work of providing a safe, secure, and nurturing home for a young person or child.

This weekly allowance is a recommendation set out by the government, and changes based on the age of the child in foster care and the location in which the foster carer lives. It’s typical that these payments are disbursed by the fostering departments of local authorities. Generally, though, you can expect weekly allowances of around £127 for babies if you live outside of London or the South East. This weekly allowance increases for older foster children, up to a minimum of £191 a week for young persons aged between 16 and 17.

If you live in the South East or in London, these allowances are higher in order to account for the higher cost of living in these regions. Foster carers living in the South East or in London will receive £140 and £146 a week respectively for babies; again this amount increases until a foster child is between the ages of 16 and 17, where respective minimum weekly allowances are £214 and £222.

Please be aware that these figures can and do change all the time, as the government reviews minimum allowances every April. If you’re looking for more specific information on how much do foster parents get paid, you can visit the government’s foster carers resource page, which provides a complete breakdown for the current financial year.

More than Minimum Allowances

Minimum weekly allowances can and do help provide foster carers with the necessary financial resources to ensure the needs of any children or young people in their care are met. However, as the name implies, these are minimum allowances. A foster agency will typically pay more than this minimum, though; Perpetual Fostering, for example, pays between £300 and £650 per child fostered. How foster agencies determine the total weekly pay you receive as a foster carer are through evaluating a number of specific circumstances, though again these circumstances are largely dependent on things such as:

the specific physical, mental, or emotional needs of a foster child

any specific skills you may have that are relevant to your ability to perform as a foster carer

a particularly large commitment, such as fostering both a mother and baby at the same time, or a child with exceptionally special needs such as round-the-clock medical care

In these cases, the additional amount a foster carer can earn per week will increase. Again there is little specificity as to how much does a foster carer get paid, so if you are selected to foster a child the final amount will be determined on an individual basis.

Other Benefits to Becoming a Foster Parent

In addition to receiving a weekly allowance for serving as a foster carer, there are some other benefits you’ll be awarded as well. One of these is the fact that a portion of your earnings from becoming a foster carer will be tax-free. This takes two forms: an annual fixed tax exemption as well as additional variable tax relief, conditional on how many weeks of the year you provide services for a foster child in your care.

The first form, the annual tax exemption, is fixed at £10,000 per year. It’s important to note that this exemption is shared across the entire household, regardless of the number of carers under the same roof; a single foster carer, for example, would receive the entirety of it, while two carers would have to share the exemption.  Additionally, if you do not serve as a foster carer for the entire year, this exemption may be reduced a commensurate amount.

The second type of tax relief comes in the form of an amount that you can add to your fixed £10,000 exemption. This accrues for every week you serve as a foster carer and is either £200 per child under the age of 11 or £250 per child over the age of 11. This adds up to an additional £10,400 to £13,000 in tax relief depending on age of foster child and whether you serve as a foster carer for the entire 52 weeks of the year.

A final note on tax relief: these fixed and variable exemptions are in addition to your tax-free personal allowance. While you can’t apply your standard £11,850 allowance for the 2018-2019 financial year to your foster carer tax exemption, you can apply that personal allowance to any income you make from a different source. This is extremely helpful for foster carers who also have an additional job or career outside of providing care for foster children.

The Answer to “Can I Foster?” 

At this point, most of the answers to the question of “can I foster” should be well answered. You’ve learnt about the application process, the amount of time it takes to have your application considered, and what types of requirements you need to satisfy in order to be eligible for becoming a foster parent. You’ve also learnt what types of opportunities you’ll have to hone some very important skills during the application process in order to prepare you for the eventuality that you will be selected, answering that question of “can I foster” with a resounding “yes”!

Beyond that, however, you’ve learnt what kind of support systems you’ll have available to you in the event you are chosen to become a foster carer. You’ll have access to a dedicated social worker to answer your questions and to work with you on personal skills development, a mentor buddy and a larger network of fellow carers to rely on for experienced advice, and advanced support in emergencies and other unique situations. You’ll also gain access to respite services as well when you simply need an extra bit of self-care.

Finally, you’ve learnt all about the compensation and other benefits of becoming a foster carer. These include a minimum weekly allowance per child fostered, additional compensation for special circumstances or if you possess special skills, and even tax relief for doing the hard work of providing the kind of dedicated, compassionate help needed to prepare a foster child for adulthood.

You may still have unanswered questions. That’s only natural — becoming a foster carer is a major endeavour, one that you shouldn’t undertake without some serious contemplation. A qualified social worker can aid you in answering these remaining questions, which will help you decide not just “can I foster” but “should I foster”. If you’re dedicated, compassionate, patient, and committed to provide one or more children with the support they need to succeed, then that answer may very well be yes.

  The post Can I Foster? Top Tips on Becoming a Foster Carer in the UK appeared first on Perpetual Fostering.

from Perpetual Fostering https://perpetualfostering.co.uk/insights/can-i-foster-top-tips-on-becoming-a-foster-carer-in-the-uk/

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Fun Ways to Celebrate Halloween with Kids

Halloween is always a popular holiday with children and teens alike. Though Halloween with kids might make the adults among us groan at the idea of sugar-filled little ones running around, the holiday is also a perfect opportunity to help your foster children get creative and have fun.

Many foster children move around a lot, which means they unfortunately often miss out on the fun celebrations and traditions that surround the holidays that other children get to experience. To help you make this Halloween special for your foster children, we’ve put together a list of fun and creative ideas that you can use to help them celebrate, no matter their age.

  Pumpkin Carving

First off, we have one of the most popular Halloween traditions. Pumpkin carving is always great fun for kids of all ages, and is a great way to get their creative (pumpkin) juices flowing. It can get pretty messy, so make sure to put down a lot of newspaper or sheets that you can easily wash, and provide bins for the discarded innards.

You could make this a friendly competition by challenging everyone to see who can make the scariest or funniest pumpkin. It’s obviously important to be safe and watch over younger kids carefully to make sure they don’t hurt themselves. Here is a very useful article about pumpkin carving with young children, full of tips, tricks, and ideas.

Halloween Catwalk

Everyone loves dressing up on Halloween! Shop-bought costumes can get expensive, so why not challenge your kids to make their own? Have everybody in the family take part if they’re willing, and once everybody has their home-made costume, host a Halloween fashion show, and vote on the best one. This really helps get the kids thinking about how they can recreate their favourite characters with materials they can find in the house, and doesn’t cost a penny!

  Make your own horror story

This idea works well with older primary school and high school aged kids. Have everybody gather round and give each person a piece of paper. Explain that you’re all going to work together to write some scary Halloween stories. Everybody agree on how you will all start the stories; for example, it could start ‘One Halloween night…’ or, ‘It was a cold, dark, night…’.

Once you’ve agreed on the first line, make sure everybody writes it down. Then, tell everybody to write the next sentence of the story on their piece of paper, and then pass it to the person on their left. Though the first line is the same for everybody, each story should be different from the second sentence onward, as each person writes down their own ideas.

Once everybody has passed their piece of paper to the next person, they should read what’s on the paper in front of them, and then continue that story for one more sentence. Then, pass it to the left once more. Continue doing this until each story has gone around the circle twice, and has reached its original author. Have everybody read out their own story and see how they ended up. (These stories usually make everybody laugh because they’re so full of twists and turns due to everybody contributing to them ).

  Bake your own tasty treats

Trick or treat! Obviously one of the most exciting parts of Halloween for kids is all of the awesome treats they want to collect. If you have time, why not create your own treats with the kids? There’re some great ideas all over the internet for some fun and delicious treat recipes that are really easy to make with kids of all ages. You can find some fantastic Halloween cake ideas here, and lots of other recipes for fun Halloween treats here.

Have a Mummy race

This is a fun activity that requires at least four people. Make teams of two, and give each team a roll of toilet paper (you need to make sure you’re OK with using a lot of toilet paper for this game!). Challenge each team to race to turn one of their members into a Mummy as fast as possible. This activity always get a little loud and crazy, and you need a lot of open space if there’s more than two teams playing, so push the furniture to the side, or play in the garden if you can!

The post Fun Ways to Celebrate Halloween with Kids appeared first on Perpetual Fostering.

from Perpetual Fostering https://perpetualfostering.co.uk/insights/fun-ways-to-celebrate-halloween-with-kids/

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Everything you need to know about Fostering before you apply

You can visit any Fostering Agency website and it’ll give you a pretty good idea of everything you need to know about becoming a Foster Carer.

At Perpetual Fostering, our approach is a little different.

We believe that you don’t need to hear it from us, the Agency.  You need to hear it from someone who’s been there and done that.  An actual Foster Carer who’s experienced the amazing highs (and the occasional lows), and who can be best placed to give some real-life advice.

So, this article is entitled ‘Everything you need to know about Fostering before you apply’.

The fact that you’re even reading this at all shows what an absolute superhero of a person you are for even considering fostering as an option for you and your family. What you’re doing is a step above and beyond. This isn’t giving money to a charity or wearing a t-shirt to show your support; this is giving yourself to a great cause, and wearing your heart on your sleeve to show the world that you’re about to play one of the most remarkable roles there is in a child’s life.

Ready to read on?

Let’s begin by forgetting everything you’ve heard in those adverts on the radio. 

Whilst many Foster Agencies will turn to the radio to advertise for Foster Carers, be careful of what those adverts are saying to you.  More often than not, they’ll state claims along the lines of the fact that “All you need is a spare room and a place in your heart”.  As a cynic and as a former English teacher, this line makes me cringe uncontrollably anyway, but it also irritates me because it’s incredibly misleading for anyone expressing an interest becoming a Foster Carer.

Obviously, you need a spare room if you want to foster, and that should really go without saying.  But what about the other things you will need?  I’m not talking about a ‘kind heart’ and a ‘listening ear’ and all that spiel dreamt up in a marketing department somewhere.  I’m talking about the other things that you may not even think about at all before actually finding yourself in the role of a Foster Carer.

My own experience has always swayed more towards talking about life with teenagers, but this is my list of ‘all you need’ as a Foster Carer in general – after you’ve cleared out the spare room, of course.

So, in no particular order, you need…

1. Spare room in all your other rooms.

Going from ‘couple with kitten’ to ‘family with foster child’ overnight means that stuff piles up quickly.  Everyone’s stuff is everywhere, yet somehow, no-one can find anything.  Make room.

2. The ability to communicate effectively.

Although your role as a Foster Carer is to serve as an advocate and a voice for the child in your care, sometimes you’ll need to think carefully about what to say and who to say it to.  This will usually be at times when somebody else in your child’s life does something you personally don’t agree with, and this could happen a lot, because we all have our own subjective best intentions.  Talk to your social worker about what you feel and what you think, then trust in them to be the best voice they can be for you.

3. A car (and the ability to drive it).

You’d be surprised how many situations have been sorted and how many pieces of much-needed advice have been administered whilst driving around in the car with pretty much any member of my family who’s needed it.  Think about it.  In a car, nobody has to make eye contact, nobody can walk out, and if it gets really awkward, you can always just throw on the radio.  Pick a station you both like to save any arguments about your almost certain “rubbish taste in music”

4. The ability to resist striking the next person who utters something along the lines of, “Yeah, but they’re not really your kids, are they…”

People’s complete lack of tact will either make you laugh or cry.  Try to laugh.

5. A talent for interpretive arts.

Without doubt, you will need to hone your miming skills in order to carry out and understand a full-on argument with your partner about whatever it is that’s caused an issue, without once uttering a full audible sentence for a child in your presence to hear.  Your young person will come to learn that you’re a human being (yes really), but in the first instance, be sensitive of the type of environment your child or young person may have just come from, and accept that shouting and arguments – as natural as they can be – can be difficult for a child to process and deal with.

6. The humility to ask for your child’s help.

Children and young people, regardless of background or experience, are innately more tech savvy than you.  The best way to make them feel at home in your family is to give them a role, and you should accept that this role will likely be to fix anything that needs a charger or wifi, when said object has caused near divorce or mental breakdown elsewhere in the family.

7. An unwavering resolve to fight (figuratively speaking).

There are many establishments, institutions and organisations who claim to support and advocate for children and young people.  It doesn’t always feel like that though, and not everyone’s agenda is child centred.  People may claim they are putting your child or young person first, but you may well struggle to believe that’s the case during your time as a Foster Carer.  Get ready to build the best case for giving your child the best life possible.

And finally, what you certainly need above all…

8. A grasp on reality.

Congratulations! By doing this wonderful thing in becoming a Foster Carer, you’ve just become a full-on parent to somebody else’s child.  Therefore, it’s completely okay not to have a clue what you’re doing! It’s almost expected, in fact, so give yourself a break.

Now that’s broken the ice, let’s look at some other practicalities of becoming a Foster Carer.

Let’s start by assessing your ‘full time’ options.

My plan all the way through the fostering application process had always been to keep my career whilst carrying out my role as a Foster Carer.  I was certainly always going to follow that plan with my own children so fostering a child seemed no different.  In continuing to work, I would feel fulfilled, would contribute financially to our family, and would set a good example of a strong work ethic to my children.  That was the idea, anyway…

A good Agency, such as the amazing team at Perpetual Fostering, will be supportive of your decisions, but they’ll also be honest and open with you, and you may have to accept the fact that working full time whilst fostering – certainly in the early days – can be difficult.  This isn’t to say it’s not doable, but it’s important to think about how flexible your working (and your boss) can be with/for you.  So, for example, if your boss gets funny with you any time you ask if you can switch a shift or finish early to head to a doctor’s appointment, even though you stayed late last night and came in early this morning, you may have problems going forward.

Though countless people work full time and raise their own birth children at the same time, fostering is different, because you don’t know all there is to know and predict about this young person coming into your life, and you’re not just playing the role of mum or dad to that child either, because you’ll have more jobs and career roles than you’d ever imagine possible when a child is in your care.

You’ll be a social worker.

Yes, you’ll have a social worker assigned to you by your Agency, and it’s likely that this will be the same person who guided and supported you through your application process, so you’ll know them well and will most definitely have a great relationship with them.  You will still need to take on a similar role yourself though, because that official person cannot be there all the time, and so it will be up to you to discover all you can about your child, seek and offer tailored support for them, and generally advocate their wellbeing in the most objective and fair way you can on a daily basis.

You’ll be a teacher.

As a qualified teacher myself, I’m a big believer in the fact that a good teacher extends their care, support and influence far beyond the classroom, and therefore to teach does not mean to simply get a child through their grades.  As a Foster Carer, you will be the prime provider of all sorts of education and learning, including social, emotional and personal aspects.  Whether you’re actively aware or not, your children will learn from you.  Oh, and if your child cannot attend school for whatever reason, then to some extent you will have to become a teacher as well.  Your Agency will of course take the lead on this, so don’t go thinking that you’ll be expected to swot up on science or go mad for maths, but you will need to take an active interest in what and how your child can formally learn.  Embrace it – it’s a great way to bond.

You’ll be a lawyer.

Nothing possesses a person quite so much as when somebody crosses their family.  In fostering, those children in your new family will at some time in their life in placement be judged, overlooked, ignored, spoken for, treated as a number, and/or used as a commodity by the countless people who are either directly or indirectly involved in their journey through life as a ‘Looked After Child’ (not Perpetual’s choice of phrase, as, like me, they don’t enjoy labelling children at all).  Prepare to put some research in as you advocate for your child, and prepare to fight.  This is all worst-case scenario of course, but it’s good advice nonetheless, because nobody is in a better position be a voice for that young person than you.  Put the background research in, because it’s worth the hard work.

In carrying out each of these roles and more, you won’t be paid a top salary, you’ll unlikely ever get an award to recognise your hard work, and you’ll absolutely never get a day off, but what you will get is reward from knowing that you are making a difference, full time, to a human being’s life.

So, you’re ready to apply?  Here are a few more things to have a quick think about.

Not everyone will be supportive of your choice and actions

Whilst I view fostering as kind, brave and ultimately selfless, not everyone shares this positivity.  There will always be someone on your radar who does not fully support your choice.  In my case, it was my own mum (in the beginning), but whilst this was upsetting, it wasn’t half as annoying as the people I barely knew who were more than happy to seek me out in Tesco and demand, “Why don’t you just have your own kids?”

You’ll hear a lot of misconceptions and some really ill-chosen words to support people’s views

Many people confuse fostering with adoption, so this is a misconception I’ve had to explain frequently.  You’ll also be helpfully informed on a regular basis that, “All foster kids are troubled” (usually as you watch your critic’s own precious angel scream blue murder over a lost biscuit), and it will irk you that you have to deal with poorly worded questions such as, “When do you get to give them back?”  Of course, it’s encouraging when questions come from those who genuinely take interest, but sadly, there are a lot of people who just want gossip.

Your family planning will be questioned

When you’ve had enough of everyone else questioning your fertility and your plans to have your ‘own’ children, unfortunately in the case of your social worker and your Agency’s assessment panel, whether or not you are planning to have your ‘own’ family is a legitimate topic of conversation.  Don’t even get me started on how much I take offence to the phrase “childlessness” (spoken by a so-called friend), but overall, I understand the conversation.  This can be uncomfortable to go through, but then again, so is childbirth!  Seriously though, consider how things could change for a child in your care if 9 months later you gave birth, and your whole world suddenly changed?

You’ll get upset/annoyed at least once during the application process

Getting upset/annoyed is pretty much a regular occurrence for me anyway, but this was heightened during the fostering assessment process.  You’ll become frustrated with people’s attitudes (see previous point), you’ll disagree with your loved ones’ viewpoints (see next point), and you’ll have to answer questions/talk about issues that ordinarily you’d save to offload on your best mate after a glass of wine and a bucketful of tears.  There are even some things you’d rather not talk about at all, but this doesn’t help your case, so prepare to toughen up and open up.  It’s absolutely vital for matching you to your role and to your future family.

Disagreements will happen

My husband and I are incredibly different in our parenting styles.  He deals with conflict calmly, whereas I am a little more intense, shall we say!  On several occasions during our assessment process, we found ourselves disagreeing over responses to our social worker’s questions.  These interviews are not the best time to rip apart the issues and delve into your differences, but that’s what you’ll feel like doing, and certainly the team at Perpetual Fostering would never leave you to deal with that should something arise.  I stand by disagreements being a perfectly natural thing to experience though, as I just do not believe couples who say they never argue – especially when talking about family!

Your home will need to be adapted in some way

I would like to think that I have a warm, welcoming and safe home, but I still tortured myself for a week after I’d realised I’d left the top off a bottle of antiseptic in the bathroom when our social worker had visited.  She probably didn’t even see it, but part of her job was indeed to (sensitively) highlight issues that may need addressing prior to us welcoming a child into our home.  Amid the changes that are helpfully suggested to you (a sturdy lock on the bathroom door, a key rack by the front door, CO3 monitors on each floor), you’ll unreasonably start believing that everything in your home needs changing and is a death trap.  (It’s really not).

You’ll be faced with some truths

A really great Agency, like Perpetual Fostering, will support and encourage you as one of their valued Foster Carers, but they’ll also give the honest answers and key information regarding things you may not really want to think about – placement breakdown, allegations, paperwork, and the stress of dealing with agencies who you may find more hindrance than help.  You may not want to hear this kind of stuff, but for the sake of being prepared and resilient as a Foster Carer, you really need to face it.

You’ll find out exactly what people think of you

Once you’ve been approved by the assessment panel, your social worker may give you access to the references they collected on your behalf.  My husband and I enjoyed reading over these as we celebrated our acceptance, as it was lovely to read about the faith that all those who knew us best had in us.  It’s a little cringe-worthy too, though, when you collate the fact that nearly all of them have spectacularly hit upon your ‘quirks’.  So, if you’re known to speak your mind, your nearest and dearest will mention it!

The process is worth taking time

Our assessment process took a good few months.  Where others may view this as lengthy, I was glad of the timeframe.  It gave me confidence that our Agency was being thorough in their assessment and were investing proper time and resource to prepare us for this life-changing event.  There are so many Agencies looking for Foster Carers, and those worth their salt know that for the benefit and stability of the children in their care, fast-tracking is never an option.

You’ll be surprised how many people out there are fostering!

For every one person who doesn’t give you the encouragement for your choice that you’d like or expect, there will be countless people who are delighted for you, bestow praise and offer support.  Some of these people will even tell you that they know someone else who is also fostering!  Not only is this lovely to hear, but it will remind you that your access to a support network is getting bigger by the day.  Personally, I know I’ll benefit greatly from this future support, as well as from the support at Perpetual Fostering, of course.

Some summary advice if you’re still reading?

Embrace the challenges of the application process, because resilience is a fantastic quality in any Foster Carer, and one of the most important traits you can pass on to any child in your care.  That very first child who comes into your home…  you will play a role in their life for sure, but whether you know it or not, you’ll also be playing a role in the lives of their children, should they go on to have any.  What you’re choosing to sign up to won’t just change a life; it’ll help change the future.

Ready to apply?  Click here to begin

The post Everything you need to know about Fostering before you apply appeared first on Perpetual Fostering.

from Perpetual Fostering https://perpetualfostering.co.uk/insights/everything-you-need-to-know-about-fostering-before-you-apply/

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Perpetual Fostering Coffee Morning

Perpetual Fostering would like to invite you, your friends and family members to a coffee morning at Perpetual Fostering.

We shall be providing guests with a variety of beverages along with biscuits and cakes in order to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support. We ask for a small donation in return.

 If you have any friends or family members interested in fostering children and young people, the coffee morning would provide an excellent opportunity to speak with staff.  

If you or anyone you know would like to join the event, please confirm your attendance by emailing us at enquiries@perpetualfostering.co.uk.  If they would prefer, friends and family can contact us via phone on 01204 364 666 to discuss fostering with a member of our team.

Event Details

Date: 28th September 2018 Time: 10:00am to 12 noon Venue: Perpetual Fostering, 31 Chorley New Road, Bolton  BL1 4QR

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from Perpetual Fostering https://perpetualfostering.co.uk/insights/perpetual-fostering-coffee-morning/

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Fun Summer Activity Ideas for Kids

The summer holidays are in full swing, and with them comes weeks of extra time to fill whilst trying to keep the children entertained. We all know kids have short attention spans and are very easily bored, so it’s important to have an array of fun and interesting activities up your sleeve to keep them occupied, and ensure they’re not just sat in front of the TV or computer console all day.

The beginning of summer was hot,  but as we approach September we can’t rely on the sun to shine every day. Here are our ideas for fun summer activities for kids no matter what the weather.

Get crafty with paper

Getting crafty with kids doesn’t have to be expensive or messy. There’s loads you can do with stuff that you can find lying around at home. Paper is your best friend when it comes to easy art and craft activities, and there’s no limit to what you can make. Check out this post for 30+ easy paper crafts for kids.

Pull out the paints

If you’re not afraid of getting your hands dirty, why not let the kids get creative with the paint? Clear a big space and cover the valuables, and let them go at it with some watercolours or acrylics. This post has a number of fantastic ideas for how to get creative with paint and make some wonderful keepsakes.

Camp in the back garden

Take the kids camping…in the back garden! This is great for younger kids because it has the element of adventure but also the home comforts that makes taking little ones away a little difficult; you have easy access to the bathroom and even their own bed if they wake up and decide they don’t much like sleeping outside.

Here’s a great post on different back garden camping activities, including lots of recipes to make and fun games to play, to make it a night to remember for all the family.  

Think outside the box at MoSi

You may not think that the Museum of Science and Industry sounds very arty, but the museum is always a hit with families and has a great variety of activities for kids and opportunities to get creative. Entry is free and there are some great exhibitions being held there, and the theme of the summer focuses on celebrating the Year of Engineering. The family weekend is being held on 25-26th August. The museum even has an app for families to use whilst exploring, and has a number of activities aimed at kids of all ages. You can find out more about their family activities and events on their family page.

Hold a Scavenger Hunt

Scavenger hunts are a great way to keep the kids entertained for hours, with the added bonus of tiring them out and making sure they sleep well that night! Here’s a great post on different types of scavenger hunts you can get the kids involved in. Just make sure you hold it in an area they know well so there’s no potential to get lost, and also that you’re not taking or leaving behind anything harmful to the environment.

Visit an Art Gallery

Art galleries are a great day out and are a great learning experience while also being fun. Most galleries are free to enter and often have special activities for children and families. The Whitworth Gallery in Manchester holds a weekly event called ‘Artist Sundays’, which include a number of quirky and interesting activities for families put together by artists.  Manchester Art Gallery also has great family events, including a number of summer art-making sessions. For more art galleries and exhibitions around Manchester, read this great post.

A yummy twist on the classic picnic

One of the more obvious summer activities is the classic picnic in a local park or at the beach. However, why not put a fun twist on the day by giving the kids the chance to make all of the picnic food. Check out these fab kids’ picnic recipes from BBC Goodfood for inspiration.  The kids will love getting creative in the kitchen, and will enjoy eating their delicious homemade treats even more!

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from Perpetual Fostering https://perpetualfostering.co.uk/insights/summer-activities-for-kids/

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How to Celebrate the Spring Equinox with your Foster Child

Tuesday 20th March is the Spring Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere. Though traditionally a Wiccan holiday,  the day simply marks the beginning of Spring (or Autumn, in the Southern Hemisphere), and is celebrated widely throughout the world. The Equinox itself is the moment when the sun seems to ‘stand still’ directly above the equator, and this will happen at 4:15 PM in the UK. Day and night will be almost equal lengths on Tuesday, and from then the days will get longer and the nights shorter as we move towards summer.

Everybody loves longer days, especially kids; more daylight means more time to play! So why not make a special day of it, and celebrate the Spring Equinox with your foster child? There are lots of different ways you can get involved and celebrate the beginning of Spring together. Here are our top ideas.

Get outside

The most obvious idea is to get outside and enjoy the sunlight. If you can, collect the kids from school and spend some time in the great outdoors. You could go to the park or even go for a nice walk in the forest or on a hiking trail.

Or, why not treat them to a picnic dinner? Have a special treat to eat or drink to mark the time when the Equinox happens, and toast to the beginning of the new season.

Plant some seeds

Spring is the perfect time for new life to bloom, so why not encourage your kids to connect with nature by planting some seeds, and taking care of them as they bloom into flowers? If you have a back garden, corner off a small section that they can call their own, and if not, get a plant pot they can use indoors, and let them choose what kind of flower or plant they want to grow there. The digging and planting will be fun, and they should enjoy the process of watering them and watching them grow.

Get crafty

If it’s raining outside (let’s be honest, it’s Spring in the UK), why not spend some time doing arts and crafts indoors? Challenge the kids to think of ways to decorate the house for Spring, and help them with the tricky bits.

Craft ideas could include drawing or creating spring chicks; sun-catchers; or even Shamrocks to tie-in with St. Patrick’s Day. Or you could get a head start on your Easter decorations, and have fun painting some hard-boiled eggs.

For a number of different Spring craft ideas, click here.

Have a Spring Feast

You could celebrate the day by having an extra special dinner and turning it into a Spring Feast. Let the kids choose what dishes to include (with maybe a little gentle direction towards healthier options), and have them help out in the kitchen. You could even make a special treat for desserts, such as a sponge cake or chocolate cornflake/rice crispy cakes. They’re super simple and kids have so much fun making them… especially when they get to lick the chocolate off the spoon afterwards!

The post How to Celebrate the Spring Equinox with your Foster Child appeared first on Perpetual Fostering.

from Perpetual Fostering https://perpetualfostering.co.uk/how-to-celebrate-the-spring-equinox-with-your-foster-child/