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The Children who need foster care |
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Foster children usually want to to live in or near to their home area and local placement is usually really beneficial for foster children, their parents and their wider family for a wide variety of reasons. Children are referred to us by Social Services Departments from across Central and Southern England. We target our foster recruitment activity so as to be able to place children as local to their home areas as possible, or as is appropriate in the circumstances. Generally speaking, the greatest need is for:
- People who are able to care for older children (age 9 upwards) or teenagers
- People who are able to offer a long term-permanent home to a child or siblings age 9+
- People who are able to care for disabled children or young people
- Carers from the black and minority ethnic community for children of all ages
The type and level of children's needs varies from time to time and from area to area. Please contact us for more information about the situation in your area.
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| Children's needs |
Generally speaking, the children who are referred to us for foster placement have the same needs as other children. Sadly, a significant proportion of foster children will also have some higher level needs as a result of earlier experiences of abuse, neglect, trauma and abandonment. As one of their foster carers, you will need to put extra effort into helping them to overcome the various impacts that these early experiences will have had on them so as to enable them to reach their potential as young adults.
Some of the children are referred to us simply because the local Social Services does not have sufficient foster carers of its own to meet local needs. Other children are referred because Social Services are looking for a particular type of foster carer or family situation or because the child has more complex needs. However all "looked after" children need foster carers who have the energy, skills and commmitment needed to promote their health, education, self esteem and social and independent living skills.
You could start out by becoming approved as a "Mainstream" foster carer and begin your new career by fostering children who have lower level needs. If you wish, you could progress over time - as your skills, confidence and experience develops - to care for children with higher level needs as a "Fostering Plus" carer. Alternatively if you have significant prior experience as a foster carer or of child care or youth work in another setting, you could be approved at this higher level from the start of your fostering career with us. |
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