The importance of support and supervision of foster carers

Foster carers are required to support children who have experienced significant life changes and trauma, including separation from their birth parents. Many children in care need additional support to help them through their challenges and to help the children to reach their full potential. Without specialist support (including training) and supervision, most people don’t have the knowledge or skills to provide good care for the children.

All fostering providers should be requiring foster carers to attend a core training programme which ensures that all foster carers have the basic knowledge necessary to support these vulnerable children. In addition to that, fostering providers should identify specific needs for the children and offer relevant training to the child’s foster carers. The fostering provider is required to monitor attendance at the training, and also to ensure that the carers understand and are able to apply the learning from the training.

Foster carers are supervised regularly by qualified social workers. New foster carers should receive higher levels of support and supervision, whereas experienced foster carers with children in long term fostering arrangements may be seen less often (depending on the needs of the child). The social workers check that the foster carers are coping well in their role, so that any support can be offered if necessary. Supervising social workers meet with all members of the household (including secondary carers, the carers own children, the children being fostered and any other household members) so that their support needs can also be identified and addressed. Social workers will also check home conditions and be responsible for keeping other checks up to date.

Foster carers are also supported with peer support, which is either provided internally by the fostering provider, or may be externally commissioned.

Sadly, not all people who are approved as foster carers turn out to be suited for the fostering role; many struggle and in fact a few cause further distress and harm to the child. The supervising social worker and the fostering team are responsible for ensuring that carers are given the best support possible so that they’re able to provide best possible care to the children, and supervising social works are also responsible for ensuring that if a child isn’t receiving good care in the home, the child is moved to a better home as soon as possible and if necessary the carers are deregistered and/or prevented from caring for children again.