What Does the Best Foster Care Training in Wales Look Like?

Choosing to become a foster parent is a significant decision, and having access to the right foster care training is a crucial part of ensuring you feel prepared and supported. At Family Fostering Partners, we pride ourselves on providing some of the best foster care training in Wales, equipping our foster parents with the knowledge, skills, and confidence they need to make a lasting difference in children’s lives.

What Training Do You Need to Be a Foster Carer?

All foster carers in Wales are required to undertake specific foster care training to ensure they can provide safe, nurturing, and supportive homes for children. This includes a pre-approval training program called “Skills to Foster,” which covers essential topics such as:

• Understanding the needs of children in care.
• Promoting positive relationships and managing challenging behaviours.
• Working with birth families and professionals.
• About Family Fostering Partners, and who are as an agency.

Once approved, foster parents engage in ongoing training to build on their skills and stay updated with best practices. At Family Fostering Partners, we tailor our training programs to meet the diverse needs of our carers, ensuring you feel fully supported at every stage of your fostering journey. Learn more about our foster carer training ethos. 

Once approved, your Link Worker will walk you through the core foster care training that you need to complete, and any additional training they think may be of benefit to you. Your training plan is bespoke, and as new needs or learning arises, your link worker will be there to signpost you in the right direction.

What Is Covered in Foster Care Training?

Foster care training is designed to prepare you for the unique challenges and rewards of fostering. Topics covered include:

• Child Development and Trauma: Understanding how adverse experiences can affect a child’s emotional and physical well-being.
• Attachment: Building secure attachments and attachment styles.
• Equality and Diversity: Promoting inclusivity and understanding the unique needs of children from different backgrounds.
• Safeguarding and Safer Caring: Ensuring the safety and well-being of children in your care.
• First Aid: Paediatric first aid training to handle emergencies.

Our foster care training sessions are also an opportunity for our foster parents to connect with other foster parents in their community. In these training sessions, advice, support and experiences are shared – plus there is plenty of time for a ‘catch up’ too! 

Our foster care training sessions are held locally, during term time and school hours, making it easy for our foster parents to access.

How Long Does It Take to Train as a Foster Carer?

The only training required to be approved as a foster carer is our 3 day ‘Skills to Foster’ course. You do not need to have any other formal training or qualifications to be approved as a foster parent. After you have completed the assessment process and been approved, will you be invited to further core training.

 The assessment process typically takes around 4 months. This includes:

1. Initial Enquiry and Home Visit: Starting your journey with an informal chat and a visit to your home.
2. Skills to Foster Training: Attending the pre-approval training course.
3. Assessment Process: Completing an assessment with your social worker, including checks and references.
4. Panel Approval: Presenting your application to an independent fostering panel for approval.

Throughout the assessment process, you’ll receive guidance and support from our dedicated team to ensure you feel ready and prepared.

Do Foster Carers Get Paid for Training?

At Family Fostering Partners, we believe in recognizing the commitment of our carers. While foster carers are not directly paid for attending training sessions, all approved carers receive a fostering allowance to cover the costs of caring for a child. Additionally, we ensure that training sessions are scheduled at convenient times and provide resources to make participation easier. Some of our foster care training is delivered online, allowing you to balance your training with other responsibilities.

Why Choose Family Fostering Partners for Your Foster Care Training?

We understand that fostering is a journey of growth, and we are here to support you every step of the way. Our foster care training is:

• Comprehensive: Covering everything you need to know.
• Flexible: Offering in-person and online sessions to suit your schedule.
• Ongoing: Providing continuous opportunities for learning and development.

In addition to the foster care training we provide to our foster parents, we also pay for full membership to Foster Talk. There, our foster parents benefit from additional training, webinars, advice and guidance. 

David, a foster parent with Family Fostering Partners, speaks to the quality of our foster care training; “You will come across challenges and obstacles. That's inevitable. It will happen. So what helps is being trained to a really good standard and having that training often. Being trained often and to a very high standard, really helps.   During our time with the local authority, we had very little support and very little training and very little development. With FFP, it's definitely been a lot more intense, and we are better foster parents for it.”

If you’re considering fostering in Wales, our friendly team is here to help. Contact Family Fostering Partners today to find out more about our foster care training programs and how you can make a difference in a child’s life.