This is our first Foster in Dorset blog but we thought this was a great way to let you know about what we have been up to and what’s coming up.
We love to get out and about meeting people and sharing ideas and we have hit the ground running in 2020 doing exactly that!
In January we had the pleasure of presenting to the Monday Club at St Mary’s Church in Dorchester as well as joining them for tea and cakes! They loved hearing about the fostering process and real-life stories from our foster carers.
What made it even more valuable was hearing their own experiences of fostering either because they spent some time in care themselves or had relatives who had fostered. One lady, now aged 78, grew up as child that fostered and talked about the positive impact this had on her life and how she remained in contact with many of her foster siblings. There were some true success stories amongst them. Very inspiring.
Part of the fostering approval process is a medical and it is important that applicants are fit to foster. We receive enquiries from people who smoke, and although this doesn’t mean they can’t foster entirely, they would be restricted to an age of child they could foster. Many enquirers actually use this as a perfect reason to stop smoking, reduce alcohol intake, maybe lose some weight and become more active! These are all the aspects that LiveWell Dorset offer support within Dorset for free!
We recently attended a forum with LiveWell to look at the service as part of their review and give feedback across aspects of engagement, delivery and marketing. We are incredibly lucky to have this available to us in Dorset and we do regularly signpost potential foster carers towards this in order to remove any health barriers there maybe to them fostering. If you’ve not heard of LiveWell, it really is worth a visit to their website where there are lots of self-help tools and resources as well as access to Wellness Advisers.
Once a quarter we meet up with other local authority’s fostering teams from across the South West. We use these meeting to discuss and share ideas about fostering recruitment. In January, the meeting was extended wider to include senior managers and share the findings from a research project that has been completed by Bath & North East Somerset Council regarding the recruitment and retention of Foster Carers. We picked up lots of great ideas, but we were also pleased to see that our approach to recruiting is in line with those sharing best practise.
Last week we were at a job fair at Weymouth Job Centre. These events are always great, and we always pick up some enquiries from people who had never realised being a Foster Care could be a career!
We are continually striving to spread the word and myth bust around fostering. There are a lot of people out there thinking they are too old, not experienced enough, not in a relationship etc and therefore wouldn’t be a suitable Foster Carer!
If you are one of those people but like the idea of fostering, please get in touch with us. You are probably more suitable than you think, and we would love to talk this through with you. You can visit our website to find more information or to complete an enquiry form so we can contact you direct. Or just give us a call on 01305 225568
