the process

The first step in your fostering journey is probably the most important one: sending us an email or picking up the phone and letting us know you’re interested.

Once you’ve been in touch, we’ll start the process of getting to know you with a visit to your home. If this isn’t possible, we’ll arrange a video call instead.

At this stage, we want to get to know you, your situation and find out more about where you call home. It’s important for us to build a relationship with you.

The first stage of your training and development teaches you more about fostering, so you can be certain it’s the right path for you. It’s also a chance to meet other new foster carers at the same stage of their journey. This initial training course is called “Preparation to Foster”, or sometimes “skills to foster”. It takes place over a few days, or evenings.

It’s about building knowledge, connections and valuable networks that last.

Once we’ve visited you, we’ll start the assessment part. This is by no means a test, but an opportunity for our team to speak with your friends and family. We’ll answer any questions you and your family may have and consider some of your strengths and vulnerabilities with our social work team.

An assessment is all about preparing you for the challenging yet rewarding journey into fostering.

The panel is made up of professional social workers, community specialists and independent members, experienced and knowledgeable about fostering, who will review your assessment.

It’s important to remember the panel won’t be accepting or rejecting your assessment, but rather just consider it from a different perspective. They’ll make individual recommendations based on your unique situation.

Once your assessment is approved by our panel, you’ll then receive a foster care agreement. This is a uniquely tailored agreement which will set out what it means to you to be a carer. It will include your daily responsibilities, the support and guidance you’ll get from us as well as the services on offer.