Foster carers are the key people who are keeping fostered children safe and helping them to achieve their potential. Ensuring that they have access to relevant and effective training is essential.
Role of Foster Carers
Foster carers play a crucial role in keeping fostered children safe and helping them reach their full potential. This responsibility operates within a tightly regulated service, demanding a deep understanding of child development, legislation, and regulatory systems.
Broad Skill Set Required
Foster carers need to understand various systems, including education, healthcare, mental health and substance abuse. They must be well-versed in handling issues such as child sexual exploitation and navigating the asylum system, among others. This necessitates a high level of skill and knowledge.
Inconsistent Learning Expectations
Across the UK, expectations for foster carers’ learning and development needs post-approval vary significantly. While England mandates induction standards completion within 12 months, subsequent expectations remain unaddressed. Northern Ireland and Scotland lack induction standards or learning frameworks, although Scottish Government is in the process of developing one. Wales offers the All Wales Induction Framework for Health and Social Care, encouraged but not mandatory for foster carers.
Disparity in Post-Approval Support
The availability and quality of post-approval learning and development programmes vary greatly among services. While some struggle to provide meaningful programmes, others offer valuable ongoing support highly valued by foster carers.
Accessibility
Training should be accessible in terms of timing and location, considering that many foster cares work outside the home and juggle childcare responsibilities.
What we are calling for
In order for foster carers to help the children they foster stay safe and achieve their potential, it is essential that they continue to develop their skills and knowledge throughout their fostering career, and that opportunities for accessing learning and development are made available by fostering services. The training on offer must be relevant and suited to their needs and the needs of children living with them.
We believe that:
- Learning and development framework for foster carers should be implemented in all four countries of the UK.
- Induction standards should be introduced for foster carers in Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.
- Foster carers should be provided with a range of flexible and accessible training and learning and development opportunities throughout their fostering careers.
- There must be an increased emphasis on fostering and the role of foster carers in social work training, to ensure social workers have a sound understanding of foster care.