01

Enquiry

Thank you for visiting our website. We would advise you to make sure you download our Fostering Guide - a link is in the right hand corner of our website, complete the short form to download our guide. Once downloaded, Jo or Charlotte, our dedicated enquiry advisers, will contact you on the number or email you provide to arrange the best time to talk with you about your enquiry and answer any queries you may have. If they and you agree to proceed then they will pass your enquiry on to a Social Worker who will arrange to visit you in your home.

02

Initial Visit to you at home

One of our social workers will visit you in your home to discuss fostering in more depth. This is an opportunity for you to explore further is fostering is right for you and also for us to assess whether there is anything at this point, that would prevent you from making an application to foster. Transparency and openness is an important part of our ethos. We encourage partnership working with our families and need you to be open with us too. If you have any worries or concerns, please ask us. During this visit we will need to look around your home to ensure that it is suitable for fostering and see the bedroom/s you plan to use for a foster child. We will tell you anything that stands out to us as something that needs to be addressed were you to proceed with the process. Our social worker will complete an Initial Visit report and will discuss their recommendations with a manager.

03

Application Form (Stage 1)

Once we are agreed that you will proceed with your application to foster with Foster Care Matters, we will send you an Application Pack to complete. This pack includes an application form, a DBS form a Consent to Enquiries authorisation form and a fostering medical form. We need this information to be completed to begin the process to become a foster parent. Don’t worry though, we will arrange to visit you to collect the forms and support you with completing anything you are unsure of. At the same time we will verify your ID documents for your DBS check. Once we receive your Application Form, this is the start of the Stage 1 Process of a Fostering application. Dependent on your situation we may decide to start Stage 2 alongside Stage 1. We will send you some homework to complete about your life story and your support network to help you start thinking about your home-based assessment.

04

Checks / references (Stage 1)

Once we have your application form and signed consent to enquiries our admin team will begin requesting your references and completing the other checks such as DBS, local authority, employment references and your personal references. We will also be applying for your DBS checks and you will be prompted to book in with your GP for your fostering medical. If there is any problem with any of the checks at this stage we will talk to you about this. If any of the information gathered at Stage 1 of the assessment process causes us to stop the assessment and you disagree then you have a right to complain to the agency but you do not have the right of appeal to the Independent Review Mechanism for Fostering.

05

Preparation training (Stage 1)

You will be invited to attend our four day Fostering Preparation Training course with a group of other prospective foster parents. The preparation training will explore with you your motivation to foster and will give you an overview about what is involved in being a foster parent. The course includes information about the children who need to be fostered, and the differences between being a foster parent and parenting your own children. You may complete this course before you start your stage 2 assessment or whilst this is ongoing. You must complete the course before your assessment is completed for panel.

06

Home Based Assessment (Stage 2)

Following receiving all the information that we need to complete the checks and after booking you a place on the next preparation training course we will allocate you to a social worker who will complete your fostering assessment. This starts Stage 2 of the fostering assessment process and your home-based assessment will begin. This will consist of pre-planned visits to you at your home for up to two hours at a time. We will cover your childhood, your relationship history, your experiences of parenting and being parented and what you can bring to the fostering task. We will also identify what further training and support you will need. We take this stage at your pace, but we will aim to complete it within 4 months. If we have any issues to raise, we will discuss these with you.

07

Stopping the Assessment process

It is important to note that at any time during the Stage 1 or Stage 2 assessment you, or we, may decide that fostering is not right for you. This could be due to something that arises in the assessment process, for example, changing life circumstances or other concerns that arise that lead you, or us, to decide that now isn’t the right time. We will always discuss this with you.

08

Panel

All reports are submitted to an independent fostering panel who will consider all the information provided and make a recommendation about whether you are suitable to foster. The panel members include adopters, a foster parent, a health professional, an education professional and social workers. You will be invited to attend panel alongside your social worker. Again, if we have any issues to raise, we will arrange to discuss these with you, prior to your attendance.

9

Approval

Foster Care Matters’ Agency Decision Maker will make a decision based on the social worker’s assessment and the panel’s recommendation, whether to approve you or not as suitable to foster. This completes stage 2 of the fostering application process. In the event you do not agree with the Agency Decision, you have the right to appeal to the agency or alternatively the Independent Review Mechanism, we will give you full details of the appeals procedure.

10

Induction

Once you receive the news that your approval has been decided by our Agency Decision Maker we will arrange an induction with you to give you the basics to get you ready to receive a child. The induction will cover such topics as your Safeguarding responsibilities, Reporting and Recording, Introduction to our Charms database, how matching works etc. As part of this induction you will have a session with CFAS which will help you start to build your therapeutic parenting tool kit.

11

Family finding and Matching

We will work hard together to start looking for a child or children whose needs we believe you can best meet. This is where our expertise really shines. We have extensive experience of family finding and ensuring we find the right family for the right child. We will do our utmost to obtain as full and accurate information as possible about the child/ren that may be a match for your family. Sometimes there can be limited information if the local authority have not worked with the child’s family for very long, but we try to ask as many questions as possible and encourage you to ask your questions too. It is really important that we work together to get this right for the children and for you. It is very important that you say if you feel a particular child or sibling group is not the right match for you.

12

Foster Home (Placement) Planning Meeting

When you agree to a match where possible a plan will be made for the child to meet you. However, it may be, if the child needs to move in an emergency, that they may move to you that day. We will be there to support you for this and for the Foster Home (Placement) Planning Meeting, which will take place shortly after the child comes to live with you if not before. This is where you will be given more information about the child’s routines, likes and dislikes and dates and times of ‘family time’ with their family and the plans going forward.

13

The Foster Child in your Home

There are lots of meetings when a foster child comes to live with you. There must be a Review of the plans for the child within 1 month of them moving to you and there may also be a meeting with School known as a Personal Education Plan (PEP). Your Supervising Social Worker will support you with these meetings and will answer your questions and help you with any issues that arise. It is important that you keep in regular contact with your supervising social worker and make them aware of any issues or concerns.

14

Support

Our Centre for Fostering and Adoption Support offers a wealth of support including therapeutic & attachment training, training for schools, foster parent support groups and activity days for the whole family. As part of the matching and foster home planning process, ongoing support will be discussed and agreed. New foster parents will be provided with an Early Support Plan to help them through the early stages of a child coming to live with them and we will also consider whether further, more tailored support is needed in relation to meeting the specific needs of the children being placed. Support is offered through all stages of the process from enquiry, to your approval as foster parents and beyond through training, consultation sessions and where required, specific support.