How we listen to our young people

As a part of Foster Care Fortnight’s theme of “guess who fosters”, we wanted to share with you the experiences of some of the wider team that helps provide the best service for our young people. This includes our Participation Officer ,Vanessa Bell, who makes sure we listen to and include our young people in everything we do.

At St Christopher’s we believe it’s really important to listen to our foster children and their feedback is vitally important in helping us to improve and develop our services.

We aim to make consultation fun, so a discussion about what information children want about being fostered was followed by a high ropes adventure. Arts and crafts sessions involving glitter and salt dough proved a fun way to help younger children tell us what makes a great foster carer.

We have asked older children to review a range of magazines and leaflets and tell us what worked for them. This is helping us create a welcome pack for newly fostered young people.

Every year we ask foster children, carers and carers’ children for their views about St Christopher’s fostering. If you’re a carer, we might ask you to answer some questions over the telephone or the internet. If you’re a child, you are likely to be asked your opinions over a meal at a favourite restaurant.

Foster children recently accompanied young people from other St Christopher’s services on a teambuilding weekend at an activity centre in Essex, where they took part in abseiling, climbing, raft building and other activities, giving them the chance to face their fears and discover new skills. It was fantastic to see the young people develop in confidence and firm friendships were forged. During the weekend they let us know that they would like to do more activities with others from different regions and services and planning for this is already underway, with a sailing trip coming up in July.

Young people are involved in recruiting new staff at St Christopher’s and some of our careleavers have provided training for staff and foster carers around how to help prepare young people to live independently.

Above all, our foster children tell us that the best thing about being fostered by St Christopher’s is their carer.

You can find out more about what participation means for St Christopher’s on our website.