Fostering training
Becoming a foster carer gives you chance to develop your own skills and expertise, alongside helping to change local young people’s lives.
From the start of the application process, we’ll provide you with initial training and support to help you work out whether fostering is right for you and your family.
Once you decide to progress your application to foster, we’ll give you all the training you need to look after a child or children in care.
As you can continue to grow and develop your skills throughout your fostering journey with our mandatory and specialist training, helping you to grow and develop too.
Skills to foster
This is mandatory training for all prospective foster carers and is a course of sessions run by social workers, experienced foster carers and other professionals working within children’s services. Skills to foster training covers issues relating to fostering and the children in our care and fostering expectations.
This training is a 3-day course and it's essential you attend this training to give you an insight into the demands and expectations fostering brings. Attending Skills to Foster, also forms the initial basis of the assessment process and helps you and us consider if fostering is right for you and your family.
Additional training and development
Professional training and development is an essential element of the fostering role and links to your progress through the various levels of foster care. Our Workforce Development Unit (WDU) offers a wide range of training opportunities for foster carers which are available to all.
We have access to range of external training offered by our colleagues in health, police and education.
Your supervising social worker will help you look at what training is right for you and ensure that you are equipped with the skills you need to foster.
You will be supported by your supervising social worker to maintain an annual Professional Development Plan (PDP) which will identify mandatory training you need to complete as well as another training which could be beneficial to you.
In person skills to foster training is held monthly, led by experienced fostering social workers. Foster carers and a care experienced young person also attend. Sessions cover fostering role, our expectations, what you can expect from us and what our children and young people might have experienced before becoming looked after.
Understanding trauma informed care and practice is delivered by our clinical Psychologist including therapeutic parenting training.
We offer ongoing training and development once approved. We'll work with you to consider training on offer to ensure you are equipped to foster confidently.
All foster carers are expected to complete an induction course to help in the completion of the national fostering minimum standards training, support and development standards workbook within 12 months of approval.