The Impact and Importance of ‘Making Memories’ Training

At Family Fostering Partners, alongside our mandatory training, we are dedicated to further enhancing the skill set of our foster parents. Our ‘Foster Parent Training and Retention Manager’ Hannah Jones tells us about the importance of ‘Making Memories’ training, and the huge impact that this knowledge has for the children in our collective care.

“We wanted to make sure our foster carers had support and strategies in place to help our children and young people feel connected to their past and to understand their memories from home, which can often be confusing and sometimes upsetting. The training will help foster parents feel confident in utilising a range of ways to capture memories that the children and their families experience in a positive way!”

The benefits to making positive memories include…

Emotional Well-being: Creating positive memories can have a significant impact on a child's emotional well-being. It provides them with a sense of security, and a feeling of being loved and cared for. These positive emotions can help counterbalance the difficult experiences they may have faced.

Building Trust: Many children in foster care have experienced disruptions in their lives. Creating positive memories can help build trust with their foster parents and caregivers, as it demonstrates consistency, reliability, and a commitment to their well-being.

Developmental Benefits: Positive memories often involve engaging in enriching activities, such as outings, celebrations, and learning experiences. These activities can contribute to a child's physical, cognitive, and emotional development, helping them grow and learn in a nurturing environment.

Sense of Belonging: Creating memories with their foster families and peers can give children a sense of belonging and acceptance.

Resilience: Building positive memories can contribute to a child's emotional resilience. When they have a bank of happy memories to draw upon, they may be better equipped to cope with adversity and stress as they grow older.

Identity Formation: Memories play a role in shaping a person's identity. For children in foster care, positive memories can help them develop a sense of self-worth and help them to piece together the story of their life.

Long-term Well-being: The memories created during childhood can have a lasting impact on a person's overall well-being and mental health. Positive memories can serve as a source of comfort and happiness throughout their lives.

At Family Fostering Partners, we provide each of the children that enter our foster parents care with a personal memory box; an opportunity for them to keep things that are special to them. For the children that are too little to utilise it, we ask our foster parents to keep letters, pictures, photos, keepsakes and tickets safe in these boxes to have tangible memories to look back on.

“We also look at how children form memories and why children who have experienced trauma can struggle with managing their memories and what we can do to support this.” Hannah explains.

“The feedback has been really positive with carers saying that they feel more confident in adding to their memory boxes and sharing great ideas on manageable ways to help capture their young peoples journey.”