Induction for new foster carers

Induction Programme for Newly Approved Foster Carers

N.B. Your social worker will visit you every 1-2 weeks to complete this induction programme with you. This programme is for post approval/ post panel in the case of Reg 24. Depending on the length of sessions and discussions held, this should take between 3 and 5 sessions to complete.

Module 1: Understanding the practical aspects of being a foster carer

 1.1 Finances

Guide to what allowances cover and how it should be allocated

The Fostering Allowances  paid to foster carers covers the cost of caring for a child at home.  

Disability Living Allowance (DLA)

If the young person in your care receives DLA you will need to keep clear recordings of how this money is spent. This money is not to be saved up for the child but to support their development as they grow. Specific things will have been highlighted that the money is in intended for such as mobility. If you are unsure about how to spend this, please speak to the child’s social worker.

Foster Care and Self Employment

As an approved Foster Carer, you are now classed as self-employed and will need to complete a yearly self-assessment tax return. There is tax relief on income from fostering so most foster carers do not go over this threshold and will not have to pay any tax. You can find further information about this at : Qualifying care relief for carers (Self Assessment helpsheet HS236) - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

As a foster carer you are automatically given membership to foster network and they can support you completing this. Tax FAQs | The Fostering Network

Insurance

As a foster carer, you need to ensure that home insurance and car insurance gives you appropriate cover. When you are approved, please contact your providers and ensure that no adjustments are needed to policies you might have in place.

Transport:

The personal allowance covers all normal family mileage to see friends, attend clubs, routine doctors/dental appointments etc.  For school and contact- related journeys that the child needs to attend and that take place outside the foster carer’s locality, a supplementary mileage allowance will be paid at 45p a mile.  This should be agreed in advance and be recorded as part of the Placement Plan agreement with the child’s Social Worker and Team Manager. Additionally, when the foster carer is required to attend meetings regarding the child that are outside the foster carer’s locality/school catchment area, mileage will be paid at 45p a mile.

How to claim Mileage

You will need to complete the form below and share with your supervising social worker. Mileage will be paid through the fostering payments system. Mileage will need to have been agreed prior to travel being undertaken, usually during the placement planning meeting.

STAFFORDSHIRE FAMILY PLACEMENT SERVICE

MILEAGE CLAIM

CHILD’S NAME:   

CISS NO:

FOSTER CARER/S NAME/S:  

B P NO. :

ADDRESS:

FAMILY PLACEMENT SOCIAL WORKER NAME/BASE:

DATE:  

FOSTER CARER NAME/SIGNATURE:  

FAMILY PLACEMENT S/W NAME/SIGNATURE:

FAMILY PLACEMENT MANAGER NAME/SIGNATURE:

Where additional transporting costs by foster carers has been agreed at the Placement Planning Meeting, mileage claims need to be submitted monthly to the Family Placement  social worker, as delay may result in non-payment. 

1.2 Lockbox, Forms and E-security

Your social worker will bring you a lockable box, this is for confidential information about the children such as paperwork for reviews or court proceedings. This will also include:

-       Foster carer Daily recording sheet

-       Incident notification form and guidance

-       Medication record and guidance

-       Allegations information

-       Safer carer guide

-       Diary

Your social worker will go through each of these forms to ensure that you understand what they are for and when to use them.

Your social worker will also give you an encrypted USB stick, they will let the fostering engagement team know you need one and you will be allocated one. This USB is to save any documents relating to the foster child in your care. Please do not save confidential information to your hard drives or cloud storage. If any documents need to be sent securely, this will be done using secure file transfer. Carers will typically use this to send in weekly recordings or have documents shared such as Supervisions or Annual Review paperwork. Here is a link to this:

https://filetransfer.staffordshire.gov.uk

You will need to review and sign the Data processing agreement and EPEP (Electronic Personal Education Plan) agreement. This is to give you access to the plans that are made around education at PEP meetings and to understand how the local authority uses data and keep this safe.

1.3 Foster carer recordings

When a child joins your family, you will be expected to complete weekly recordings about their progress within your care. This is for the child to access when they are older should they wish to do this. The recordings are shared with the fostering and children’s social workers and help them keep up to date with how things are going. The recordings are there to help the child understand their journey in foster carer and important people that have been part of this journey.

This is a lovely example from some of our foster carers (names and dates have been changed).

Dear Lily

September has been a very eventful month for you. At the start of August, we took you to Butlins. It was your first proper holiday. You did a lot of activities including swimming and baby fairground rides. You’ll find all your photos and videos on your memory stick in your memory box.

We went to all the shows including Peppa pig which you thoroughly enjoyed. We took you swimming for the first time and you had a professional photo taken. We made sure you had plenty of sleep before we took you swimming because we wanted you to have a good experience. You’re not you when you are tired! We also made sure you had a snack before too.

As soon as we put you in the pool, you started to yawn your little beak off. Within 5 minutes you were already tired! But you really laughed and kicked your legs managing to swim to us in your little water carrier.

After swimming you were so hungry, and you managed to eat a full bag of apple slices! We took you swimming again a few days later and you were exactly the same. You are definitely a water baby.

September is a really busy month in our household because we have lots of birthdays in the family. Of course, your birthday is also in August on the 11^th where you will be one year’s old. Brian’s 48th birthday was on the 10^th and your foster nana Jeans birthday is on the 26^th.

On your birthday you had such a lot of presents from everyone. You were spoilt rotten and rightly so! You are a very special baby girl.

Even though lots of money was spent on you, your favourite present was the two yellow plastic xylophone sticks that you’ll see in some of your photos. They came with the xylophone but you just like to bash everything and crawl around with the sticks in your hands.

Myself and Brian decided to buy you a JJ doll from one of your favourite tv programmes. Coco Melon. It is all the rage in 2021!

You spent 3 hours with your mummy on the morning of your birthday and you received lots of presents and cards from all of your extended family. We have put all your 1^st birthday cards in your memory box.

After picking you up from family time with mummy we decided to take you to McDonalds for your favourite treat. Chicken Nuggies and chips. We tried you with some ice-cream but you’re not very keen on very cold things at the moment.

On the 18^th September it was a Sunday. We held a big 1^st Birthday party for you. We invited some family and friends of ours that have toddlers. Macie came who is a few months older than you and is Brian’s 2^nd cousin. You will find photos of you and Macie on your memory stick. You spent a few hours per week with Macie and she likes to mother you by taking your dummy out and putting it back in. My friend, Amy brought her 5-year-old daughter Bella to your party and also my nephew Lee came. Lee is the red head boy in some of your photos. They all played with you and did a lovely colourful crayon picture with you which is in your memory box.

My mum foster nana Jean baked you a lovely Coco Melon cake. It was amazing and you loved it. We all sang happy birthday to you. All the videos and photos are on your memory stick.

Some notes on your development in September. You have started to stand unaided for a few seconds before falling to your bum. We think you are going to be walking soon. You get so frustrated sometimes because you just want to go!

You have 4 front teeth now. 2 on the top row and 2 on the bottom row. You started to say some new words this month. Boo is one of your favourites. If we say “where is Lily” you hide behind your hands and then say Boo!

You’ve started to say mom and dadda a lot more now. You also shout the word Yeah! You fully understand clapping and when we say clap your hands you will clap your hands.

Some new food we tried you with is Pineapple. You really didn’t like it but it might just be the texture. You used to eat banana but have decided this month to start spitting it out.

You still love Garden peas and it is amazing watching you pick them up with your left hand perfectly and place them in your mouth. When you try to do this with your right hand you aren’t so good at it so we think that you are left-handed. That’s it for September 2021. Talk soon, Brian and Maxine x

1.4 What to do in an Emergency

It can be stressful if an emergency situation arises so here are so tips about what to do if this does happen:

My Foster child has not returned home – please note the time and where they were prior. Try to contact them or their friends or where you think that they might be to find them. If you are unable to locate and you are getting worried call the supervising social worker and the children’s social worker if during work hours or EDS if outside of this. Consider contacting emergency services after a set period of time. You will need to record this on an incident notification form and share with you fostering social worker.

Medical incident – If there is a medical emergency, please ring 999. If you are unsure if the situation warrants call to the emergency services and is health related please call 111 for advice. This in includes if there is a mental health crisis.

The Emergency duty number if something happens outside of office hours is:

0345 604 2886

You can ring the children’s social worker or your supervising social worker or the duty number during office hours Monday to Thursday 08:30- 17:00 and Friday 08:30- 16:30.

Managing emergency situation can be very challenging, the expectation of the fostering service is that you access support and that you act as a responsible parent would. If the child requires significant medical treatment, permission will be needed from the children’s social work team / senior manager however treatment may be given urgently which medical professionals will be responsible to decide.

1.5 New carers Whatsapp Group

As a newly approved carers, you will be invited to join a WhatsApp group for new carers. You can remain part of this group until your first review (at 6 months) or longer if your social worker feels it would still be beneficial. This will be hosted by the 4 senior practitioners from the fostering service. This is a forum in which you can access quick support or ask questions when you are unsure of what to do. The hosts will either respond directly to queries to signpost you to how to get an issue resolved.

1.6 The Role of the Fostering Social Worker

The role of your social worker is to support you and ensure that the foster child in your care is thriving. They will want to talk about how the child has been doing and may offer advice and guidance around this. They will also ask about how you are doing and ensure that you feel confident in your role as foster carer. They will strive to build a positive working relationship with you, this means that you both can have difficult conversations and ask challenging questions when needed. It is important that you be open and honest with your worker and that this is reciprocated.

Your social worker will undertake 4 supervision visits per year, these will be recorded on a supervision document and you will get a copy of this. You will also have support and unannounced visits. During the unannounced visits, your social worker will want to speak to the young person on their own and view all the rooms in the house. Your social worker will keep in contact with you around these visits to ensure that everything is going well.

1.7 When a child is placed

Usually, a child will be brought to your home by their social worker. There will be a meeting in the first 72 hours of the child arriving with the children’s and fostering social worker call the placement planning meeting. This is to look at any agreements needed and to ensure that you have everything you need to care for the child. You will look at delegated authority so you are clear about what you can and cannot agree to in relation to the child. The fostering social worker will also complete the individual safer care plan for the child so you will discuss if there are any specific issues you need to be mindful of in terms of your care.

1.8 Fostering Handbook

Detailed information can be found in the Foster Carers Handbook, this is a fantastic resource to refer to. 

Module 2: Matching a child and working with Children’s Social workers

2.1 Guide around matching and working with Placements- (not applicable for Family and Friends carers)

Stability for looked after children is vital, this is why matching in foster care is so important. When matches do not work, fostering arrangements breakdown which causes instability for the child and, sometimes, results in the foster carer taking a break from fostering or leaving.

Findings show that best practice when matching children and foster carers includes:

• children being involved in the decision making and planning about where they are going to live
• basing the matching process on timely information sharing, a detailed understanding and analysis of children’s individual needs, and the foster carers’ skills and experiences
• foster carers feeling empowered and confident in their role as part of a wider professional team
• birth families and previous foster carers being involved in making the matching decisions, in order to support their lasting relationships with the children
• formal permanent matches being made (when in the best interest of the child and foster carer) which effectively address the longer-term support needs for carers and children.

When a child is coming into care, sometimes little information is known about them. This can make matching difficult as the extent of the child’s needs is not understood. When a child needs a new foster home, their social worker will complete a Request for Placement (RFP). These will often be anonymised and sent to foster carers to review and see if they feel they have the skills to meet that particular child/ren’s needs.

When matching a child, the following areas will be considered:

• The Terms of Approval of the foster carer
• The number, ages, circumstances and any special needs of the children the carer has responsibility for (including their own children) alongside the circumstances of the child being considered.
• The arrangements proposed for the care and accommodation, including sleeping arrangements, for all the children concerned.
• The intended relationship between the foster carers and the children, including the carer's views, previous experience, knowledge of the children and the degree of any pre-existing relationships.
• The period over which the child/ren will likely be living with the fostering family.
• The views of the child/ren to be fostered and the likely effect on them and on any other children living in the fostering household.
• The foster carers’ capacity to provide sufficient care for all the children, taking into account all the known demands such as caring responsibilities, family time etc, alongside the impact of caring for an additional child/ren.

Sometimes when RFP come into the service, courts have not agreed to the children coming into care and a placement is found in anticipation of this. That means that sometimes when carers are matched, the children do not become looked after. Carers can find this disheartening so is good to understand that even if matched, not all arrangements will go ahead. There are lot of children that will need your support and we will find the right match.

Advice from Experienced Foster carers

As part of this induction programme, experienced foster carers have been spoken to about what their advice and top tips would be for new carers. Here’s what they said:

1. If possible, try to meet the child before they come to live with you so you have a better sense of what they are like.
2. If possible, try to have a planned transition to your care.
3. Children are never like they read on a profile, it is really hard to capture what a child would be like with you and your family. You might find they have none of the behaviours that were talked about in the referral and it was due to their previous circumstances.
4. Ask lots of questions, try to speak to someone who knows them well such as their previous foster carer, teacher, social worker etc
5. Do not be afraid to say no if it does not feel right
6. Even though you’ll receive a lot of information about the child, try to treat them as a blank canvas and get to know them yourself.
7. If there are lot of medical conditions and diagnoses, try not to be scared! They’re still a child in need of love and nurturing.
8. Make sure to look at what family time arrangements there will be and how this will be supported
9. Make sure they’re okay with pets if you have any

10. Ask for a mentor who has the same approval as yourself so they can share their experience and knowledge. 

2.3 Understanding the role of the children’s social worker

The children’s social worker is there to support the young person and at times make decisions in their best interests. Some examples of things that you need to approach the CSW for:

-       Setting up/clarifying family time arrangements

-       Providing information about how family time has gone and the impact on the young person

-       If there has been a serious incident with the child/ren e.g. gone missing, accident, mental health issues, they have disclosed information relating to previous abuse

-       Permission is needed to take the child/ren on holiday/out of the county

-       Support for the children

-       Arranging time for them to visit.

Children’s social workers are more likely to have to respond to emergency situations and therefore it is important to be able to be aware that appointment may need to change at the last moment. It will be helpful if you ask the children’s social workers involved when they have any planned leave and ensure you have the office number to contact in their absence.

2.4 Supporting family time arrangements

Part of the national minimum standards for foster carers is to promote children seeing people who are important to them. There may be family time arrangements set up for children to see their parents, grandparents, siblings etc. If there is an arrangement in place, you should ensure that you have the children’s social worker number and the duty number in case they are uncontactable for any reason. Family time arrangements can sometimes take some time to settle into a routine so please be patient with this.

Module 3: New Carer Development

3.1 TSD Standards

All approved foster carers are required to complete their TSD standards. This means that you complete a portfolio of evidence in relation to different areas of care. These standards are slightly different depending on your approval. Task Centred carers need to complete 7 standards within 12 months of approval, many carers will complete at least 2 of these in the assessment period. Family and Friends carers have 6 standards to complete and have 18 months to do these in. Disability short breaks carers have 6 standards to complete in 12 months. All of the standards are to support your ongoing development as a foster carer. Your supervising social worker will support you with completing your portfolio, you will have a workbook to complete. If you are worried or have any concerns about completing this, please discuss this with your social worker.

Once you have completed your portfolio or 2 standards from this (one of which needs to be the standard relating to safeguarding) your payments can increase to level 2. This means that in addition to the allowance for the child, you will also get a fee element too.

3.2 Developing your Support Network

As a foster carer it is really important to be supported. Fostering can be tiring at times and it is great to be able to have a night out whilst the foster child/ren are cared for by someone whom they already know. We encourage foster carers to have people in their support network DBS checked. A DBS check would usually be sufficient for a child to stay overnight with someone. If they were regularly going to be undertaking care of the child on their own or if it were for an extended period of time, we will undertake support carers assessment. This means that we will have a more robust look at the care arrangement proposed and will undertake a short assessment. This is often the best way of proving stability and consistency to the young people in your care.

Whilst we would expect that Foster carers take children on holiday with them, sometimes when children join your family holidays have already been booked and children cannot be added to this. Support carers would be needed in this instance. By keeping it to someone within your own support network, this can provide more stability and security to the young person.  

You will be able to develop your fostering support network over time too. There are lots of different supports that you can attend and this will help to build up your support networks of other carers who understand the specific pressures you might be facing.

A mentor can also be allocated to you, they can support with day to day issues that you might be having, they might also help with your TSD standards.

3.3 Training and Development

As a foster carer you are required to undertake 21 hours of learning and development per year. You have access to the training catalogue and a wealth of training courses including e-learning, virtual and face to face. There are 10 courses which comprise the core training. You can discuss these with your social worker or email to book on to one of these at:

fostering.training@staffordshire.gov.uk

You will review your personal development on a yearly basis as part of your foster carers annual review. It’s important to think about learning that will support you with the issues that are coming up in your household. You can be flexible and creative when it comes to learning. For example, you can watch TV programs, listen to podcasts, undertake some research, read a book in addition to completing a reflection about your learning. If you need help completing a reflection, you can do this with the support of your social worker. This is of course alongside the training courses that are offered.  For example, if a young person in your care in struggling with issues around their gender, undertaking some research around this on how to support them and discussing with your social worker would be a great option and count towards your learning and development.