Hello everyone, my name is Karen Palfreyman, since our Registration with Ofsted in May 2024, I have been the Registered Manager at Foster Care Matters. I joined Foster Care Matters in November 2023 and have been privileged to be involved in bringing the ideas of setting up a fostering agency to fulfilment through taking forward the development of the agency to this point.  I am so excited to develop our new service further and can’t wait to welcome our first fostering applicants, and build our Foster Care Matters family.

A bit about me. I qualified as a social worker in 2001 and following 3 years of working as a children’s social worker, I moved into fostering working for a large North West local authority, recruiting and assessing both family and friends foster parents and also foster families who cared for children where there was no family connection. From there, I worked with three different independent fostering agencies in the roles of supervising social worker, assessing social worker, Team Manager and Registered Manager.

In my last agency, I was both the Registered Manager and the Head of the Service. I have led my previous agencies through Ofsted inspections both achieving Good and Outstanding results.  I am passionate about fostering and becoming the best fostering agency out there.

What do I think makes the best fostering agency? One that has a family feel, where our foster parents feel fully supported, trained and equipped for the often challenging, yet massively rewarding task ahead of them. One that has therapeutic parenting, that is trauma informed at its heart, where we work transparently and care for our foster families, staff and children with kindness and have aspirations for their futures. One where the child and their needs are central to what we do and supporting their recovery from the adverse experiences they have had in their young lives and helping them achieve their potential is our goal.

So what about you?

• Do you have (a spare) room in your home and in your heart for a child or children that are unable to live with their birth family?
• Are you flexible to be able to take on new ideas in parenting? (that will benefit your own child if you have them too).
• Do you have the time and energy to help a child heal and give them a sense of belonging?

We are looking for foster families of all shapes and sizes, all cultures and religions, or no religion, to provide stability and consistency to children for long term short term and sleepover care (respite) periods.

We would love to hear from you and look forward to meeting you. Fill in our online form below or give us a call free on 0300 123 1061.

Complete our online enquiry form today

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