Supporting Birth Children in Fostering Families

We believe that Education is the passport to the future, and regard it as a pivotal part of our work. We offer regular training to our staff and foster carers, as we know that it can help them to be the best they can be, and feel fully supported in their roles supporting children and young people.

However, while we support foster carers, we have become increasingly aware of the need to support birth children, and offer them the opportunity to learn about the difficulties which some of our children in care face. We know that fostering is a big transition for any family and the impact of this change can be particularly challenging for the birth children of our foster carers.

We wanted to ensure that all members of the fostering household felt supported, and in light of this, developed a training session aimed specifically at supporting birth children of foster carers to increase their understanding of trauma in an age-appropriate way; whilst also providing a supportive and reflective environment where the birth children could explore some of the challenges which children in care face.

The training session was piloted by Laura Garnett, Psychologist, and Jenny Summers, Service Manager for the Midlands & North in August. Jenny said “The five young people who attended were a credit to their families; they gave up their own time to attend and bought the content of the session to life by speaking openly about their experiences. They also provided honest and helpful feedback on how this session could be improved for the future. Their recommendations are informing the development of this training across other Five Rivers regions, so that it can be added to the 2020 training calendar.”

We are committed to supporting birth children and young people, and encouraging those across Five Rivers to get involved, so keep an eye out for these sessions in your area!

For more information, please call the Midlands & North Fostering Team on 01246 558292.