Preparations for our first families in assessment

Today we had the first of our Skills to Foster Preparation Training groups for families joining our fostering service.

Our discussions today focussed on sharing views, experiences and ideas about the role of the foster carer in the life of a child in care, and the Secure Base Model of therapeutic parenting. 

Using this model, which Fostering Together is using to underpin support and development of our fostering families, our families will learn how to acknowledge and address both their understanding of their children's needs, alongside their role and influence as a caregiver, to promote a secure attachment for children they foster, enabling them to build on their confidence, feelings of belonging and reassurance that they have someone to support them.

Our first cohort of families, who we're expecting to progress through to approval over the next month and towards the end of January 2021, had some really insightful discussions about their own experiences of caring and parenting, and had reflective discussions about how to frame and consider what they have done to negotiate, support and reassure children in their care.

We're really excited for the second part of our preparation discussions later to discuss the understanding of the ethos of our service, and to draw out what these families expect from us as a fostering service in terms of support and training and development. Working together we're really looking to develop our service in co-operation with these families at the centre. 

These are exciting times for all of us and we're really looking forward to 2021!