Fostering Training

• Family Fostering Partners have years of experience in recruiting and training new carers.
• All of our carers must attend the ‘Skills to Foster’ course which provides them with all of the essential skills needed to be a successful foster carer.
• Ongoing foster care training is available to our carers who wish to continue to grow, learn and develop in their role.

Many prospective foster carers are put off from applying because they think they do not have the skills or the qualifications for the role. This should not be a deterrent for anyone! We do not require any form of qualification to apply, all we ask is that you are passionate about making a difference and improving outcomes for vulnerable children and young people across England and Wales!

We understand that happy and successful placements are the direct result of well-informed and knowledgeable foster parents, that’s why we ensure that all of our carers are completely prepared for their role. If you have a passion for caring for children and if you are kind, patient and loving, then you are already on the way to being a fantastic foster carer!

During the application process, you will be invited to a ‘Skills to Foster’ training course. This is a 3-day course and attendance is mandatory for all applicants. It is really important that you attend because the course has been carefully designed to cover all the essential skills you will need to be a foster carer. The course is kept up to date with all the latest information on foster care and will cover:

• What foster carers do
• Identity and life chances
• Working with others
• Understanding and caring for children
• Safer caring
• Transitions

The course is taught to a group and you are encouraged to work together and ask questions. We understand that some people may be nervous about entering a learning setting but we will always make sure that everyone is comfortable and never put you on the spot. As well as informative, the training is intended to be fun and interactive, we want everyone to enjoy the sessions and take part!

The training course takes place before you are approved to foster as it is a good way to get you prepared and for you to find out more about the role. If you have any issues with the ‘Skills to Foster’ course, your Supervising Social Worker will be able to speak to you and offer their advice and support.

We also provide further training in the form of the Core Traning Programme, this detailed programme consists of 6 individual learning programmes and is designed to give carers are more detailed knowledge of therapeutic care and specific issues that surround fostering. We believe our training programme is one of the most comprehensive in the field and provides carers with outstanding levels of support and guidance.

Once you are approved as a registered foster carer with Family Fostering Partners, we encourage you to keep learning. This is very much a hands-on role and you may find that you have more questions once you take on your first placement. We actively encourage carers to take part in additional post-approval training sessions as and when required as they progress through their carer with us, including refresher courses and specialist courses.

Our Training Ethos

• Family Fostering Partners is an attachment-focused agency because we believe that positive, meaningful relationships are crucial to overall health and wellbeing.
• We believe that nurture, love and support are the best ways to support physical and mental development.
• All of our training programmes are focused on the principles of therapeutic care as this provides children with the best possible futures.

When a baby is born, nearly all of the cells in the human brain – about 100 billion of them – are already in place but are not yet working. Adults need to be on hand to help their infants “wire up” these connections by offering kind, consistent and sensitive care. Attachment describes the way in which adult care givers help children feel loved, and how the strong foundation this creates helps their brain develop and supports all their future development.

Abuse, neglect or rejection all have serious implications for healthy brain development, but foster parents are in the unique position of being about to provide children with the secure base that they may have been missing. Therapeutic care can repair some of the harm that children have experienced, and it is this kind of care that we aim to provide at Family Fostering Partners.

Our goal is to build positive safe and stable relationships between children and their foster parents and to create successful foster care for everyone.

As a foster parent, you will hold the privileged position of caring for a child who is unable to live with their birth parents. The children who come into foster care can be of all ages and from many different backgrounds with a variety of reasons for needing to be looked after. Sometimes it is because of a family illness; relationship problems; family breakdown, or a situation where their safety and wellbeing is threatened. Most children will have experienced neglect or perhaps physical, emotional or sexual abuse and will have faced more difficult situations and hard times than most adults ever will.

These difficult experiences can make it incredibly hard for children to build trusting relationships with adults, to feel a sense of family membership and belonging, and to understand and manage their own feelings and emotions. This can lead to low self-esteem, a lack of confidence and behavioural problems.

At the heart of our carer training ethos is helping you to build positive relationships with the children that you care for. By doing this, you will be helping children to repair attachments, to develop more secure and healthy relationships, and to feel a sense of family belonging. Research tells us this will help the children we care for to develop self-confidence, self-esteem and self-reliance and contribute to a strong sense of identity and belonging. With these foundations in place, children and young people are afforded the best chance to secure positive long-term outcomes in education, health and overall wellbeing.

If you want to know more about the training provided by Family Fostering Partners, give us a call, use our live chat tool or fill out the contact form below. We are happy to hear from any prospective carers with questions or experienced carers who wish to switch agency!