What is the role of a foster parent?  

Meetings

Foster parents attend a lot of meetings, some of these take place in your own home and include supervision visits from your supervising social worker, as well as visits from the child’s local authority social worker.

You’ll also attend review meetings, where professionals, include yourself meet to discuss the young person you are caring for and identify and needs and support requirements.

Foster parents also receive a review annually, to ensure they receive acknowledgement for their work with the young people and to ensure any training or knowledge gaps to are identified.

Training

As a fostering parent, you're always learning, each new child you care for will have different needs and to support you, you will need to attend ongoing training and if needed therapeutic support.

Education

As a foster parent, you'll also need to take children to school and be an advocate for their education.  The school they attend is unlikely to be the school nearest you, as when children have had to move homes, keeping the continuity of school is often important.

Contact with birth family

You'll also take children to see their birth family, known as contact. Contact can be with parents, grandparents and siblings. It can be supervised or very informal depending on the family circumstances. Contact can be an emotional experience for children in care and any child you look after will need your support, understanding and empathy.