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Fostering

 

What is Fostering?

• Fostering is about making a difference to a child’s life to enable them to reach their full potential.
• Foster Care is looking after someone else’s child or children in your own home for short or long periods, maybe until the child reaches adulthood.
• Foster Care is working in partnership with families and social workers.  It will mean attending some meetings and reviews about the child, and foster carers are expected to encourage children to maintain contact with their birth families.
• Foster Care is helping a child to understand why he/she cannot live at home, and helping a child understand the past and build self-confidence for the future.
• Foster Care is about accepting the child for who he is, regardless of race, religion, language, gender, age, culture, disability or sexual orientation; and about having a non-judgemental attitude towards children and their parents.
• Foster Care can often mean dealing with difficult or challenging behaviour, and can mean facing uncertainty and change, both for the child and carers.
• Foster Care means giving time, space, understanding and guidance, and setting clear boundaries that a child can understand. It is also about letting a child know you are there for them when they need you.
• Foster Care is about helping children in need live in ordinary families and do ordinary things.
• We need foster carers for children of all ages, but particularly for teenagers, and for brothers and sisters who need to be placed together.