Becoming a Foster Carer: Home Visits

Hi, I'm Sandie and I'm the fostering manager here at St Christopher's in the West Midlands. My top team of social workers complete our home visits. These take place after you enquire about fostering and we think you might be suitable to start fostering our young people. We're all local people who work in the area and we believe our team is special because we really want to make a difference for children and it's important that our foster carers want to do the same.

Children shared what they
thought a foster carer looked like

We'll call you and introduce ourselves. We think it's good that you know who'll be coming to visit you! Our visit will always be at a time when you (and your partner, if you have one) are both at home. Yes, we can visit at weekends and evenings! If you think it's appropritate for your own children to be there as well, that's okay too. We think they're an important part of any foster family.

We always ask that you keep your house how you'd have it on any other day. This is because the home visit is chance to get a peak into your everyday lives.

Although we do have questions to ask and paperwork to fill in, this is a really great chance for you to ask us lots of questions too.

We like to start by having a look around your house, especially as we'd like to see the bedroom you'd intend for a foster child. We need to make sure it can fit all the right furniture in and that it's a good space for a child to call their own. Of course, we don't expect it to be all ready for someone to move in. You'll have plenty of time to sort that out if you carry on with the process of becoming a foster carer.

Alongside the bedroom, we'll generally check that your home is a safe, clean space for someone else to come and live there with you and your family.

After we've had a look around, we can then chat with you and your family. Our questions cover lots of topics, including what fun things you like to do as a family, your life experiences, your family's health and your understanding of fostering and fostered children. We always like to discuss your answers and we always want you to ask questions as well. We want you to feel confident and comfortable with us as we'll be supporting you throughout your fostering journey.

Your social worker will check through all the paperwork after the visit and make sure it has as much detail as possible so we get the best picture of your family. I'll then decide whether to invite you to our preparation training. We'll always be transparent with you and we might sometimes ask for more information and we'll always explain if we can't progress you to the next stage. Honesty is always the best way forward and it's always great to talk to potential foster carers. Remember, your life experience is good. It makes you who you are today!

Foster Care Fortnight: Fostering and the Arts

Did you know that it's Foster Care Fortnight (June 1 - June 14)? For the next two weeks, we'll be taking a look at what fostering is and how St Christopher's supports young people and foster carers. 

Today we're focusing on fostering and the arts. Here's Joanna Treharne, supervising social worker, from our West Midlands fostering team, talking about the drama group she runs for local fostered children.

The Sparkling Stars drama group started in September 2014 as an opportunity for fostered young people and birth children to come together and explore expressing themselves through the medium of drama and performing arts. It's evolved into a regular monthly group. The initial target group was 11 to 16 years old but the young people who are committed are aged six to 14 years old. The group is made up of children who have experienced early trauma, attachment difficulties and some who have additional needs.

Jo does fantastic work with her
drama group for fostered children

Due to the young people's age and experience a lot of focus has been on group and social skills, voice projection, confidence raising, calming techniques and understanding how emotions affect physicality. The children have also picked up a range of drama skills, such as script writing, storyboards, costume design, developing characters and learning skills. This has been achieved through icebreakers, team building activities, drama games, singing, tongue twisters, dressing up, using musical instruments and learning meaningful poems.

The young people chose to perform their poems at our celebration event in November 2014 in front of 120 people. They said that they felt they had achieved something they were not sure they could have done before!

The young people wanted to continue developing their drama and speech and language skills on a regular basis and undertake new projects. The group provides peer support and a safe place for young people to be themselves and share their experiences of being looked after. We're also developing social interaction skills and helping young people to develop an understanding of participation and having a voice about the services they receive.

The group focuses on a particular area of our group agreement each session, such as showing respect and taking part and have a discussion about this. They can also share issues that they are worried, happy, angry about or proud of. Each session is evaluated by the group using scales and visual tools. Young people are always encouraged to share positive feedback about their peers.

Future plans are to prepare, practice and perform a young people's play chosen by the group to an audience in October 2015. They're also preparing poems to interpret and perform at our next Celebration of Achievement event in November 2015.