How we support you and your family in your fostering role. 

At Brighton and Hove City Council we believe training and support is vital to ensuring are foster carers and their families are equipped to provide the very best care for our looked after children.

In addition to the training we provide (we’ll go into this in more detail in our next blog), here are the ways we support you and facilitate invaluable peer support with other carers.

Supervising social worker & 24 hour out of hours support

Your social worker will be on hand to help and advise you. They will see you in person at least once per month and much more regularly in the first few months whilst you’re finding your feet and they will also carry out an annual review with you each year to ensure all your learning and developing needs are met  and ensure  you have the skills and knowledge you need. They will get to know you and your family incredibly well so that you’ll never feel alone. Foster carers tell us their relationship with their supervising social worker is so important in helping them with the fostering tasks and during the highs and the lows.

Our out of hours support telephone line means that someone will be available day and night so you have support whenever you need it.

Fostering Support Team

This is a group of highly skilled workers who offer direct work with the children and can help with both practical support and transport logistics when needed as well as emotional support. They also run fun events and activities for the foster children as well as for your own children throughout the holidays, giving you a break and providing the chance for the children to meet other looked after children and create new friendships.

Support Groups

We facilitate a range of support groups such as new carer support groups, sole carers groups, male carer groups and teenage carer groups plus many more. These groups offer invaluable opportunities for our team and carers to come together to discuss concerns, share experiences and offer support, guidance and friendships to each other. There are also coffee mornings and other social activities throughout the year where you can meet with other foster carers.

Foster Care Forum

Every 3 months we run a forum where we invite our foster carers and our fostering team including managers and social workers to come together and have an open discussion. There is no agenda so carers can ask questions, share experiences and suggest ideas. We want our foster carers to have the chance to have their say and it’s a great opportunity for us to hear feedback and make improvements to our service. This also provides a great opportunity for carers to come together meet and network with other foster carers.

Drop in clinic

Every 6 months our senior managers hold drop in clinics and you can book a 30 minute appointment with them. This allows you to share feedback or any concerns and have a longer discussion.

Access to expert advice

Looking after children in care can be complicated but we have experts on hand to give advice and guidance to help with a range of issues  from educational to mental health.

We are always looking for new ways to hear from our foster carers and to listen to what they have to say. We are proud of the support we provide and everything we do is to create the best service for our foster carers and ultimately to support our looked after children. Our vibrant foster care community is growing from strength to strength and we’d love you to be part of it.

To find out more visit our website:

www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/fostering

Call us on 01273 295444

Come to one of our info sessions and ‘like’ us on Facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/FosteringforBrightonHove/