Lucy Stevens - 12th September 2019
The next step in becoming a foster carer.
How do I proceed with the Fostering Application after the home visit?
Last week we shared a blog about the home visit. Once you have had your home visit and you, your family and the fostering provider are keen to go ahead with your fostering application, you are ready for the next stage of the process. The fostering application form.
What information does the fostering application form require?
We need quite a bit of information from you in order to proceed with your fostering application. The assessment will consist of information gathering both behind the scenes and directly from you in the form of face to face meetings. The application form helps us to start both of these processes.
Behind the scenes
There are some checks that we will need to carry out with Local Authorities, the Police and Due Diligence Services (DBS). In the application form, we ask you to list previous addresses so that we can contact the Local Authorities. This enables us to check facts and to gather a narrative of your history.
We also ask for references, both personal and professional, where appropriate. If you do not yet want us to approach your professional referees, you can state this and we can leave it until a later date once things have progressed further. The aim of references is to build a picture of your skills and personal qualities and is a useful way for us to get to know you better.
Many excellent foster carers manage long term health conditions and might also have a history of mental health conditions.
We’ll need to know about your general health and will ask for details of any health conditions on your fostering application form. Moreover, we will write to your GP and request them to carry out a health check. The GP then completes a report which will help us to assess your physical and mental fitness to foster. Please do not be worried about this. Many excellent foster carers manage long term health conditions and might also have a history of mental health conditions. These medical issues in themselves will not stop you from fostering but will allow us to assess what additional support you might need.
We will ask you for details of any previous long-term partners. We know that sometimes approaching previous partners can be difficult and we will talk to you about this. For some people there are valid reasons not to approach ex-partners and we will always take your views into account and discuss it with you.
The face to face
The fostering application form will ask you some more general questions which help us to get a feel for your family, lifestyle and home situation. In addition to this we will ask some initial questions about your motivation to foster. Why do you want to foster? Why now? How long have you been thinking about it?
You will provide details of any birth children, living away from home or in the family home. Your children will form an important part of the fostering assessment. We will need to understand their views, feelings and expectations. Where birth children are adult and living away from home, we would want to contact them to speak to them about you and their views on what you might be like as a foster carer. Younger birth children, living at home, will be spoken to by a social worker as part of the assessment process. In addition to this, their feelings, needs and circumstances will be assessed so that we can ensure the best possible package of support for the whole family.
Then what?
Once we have received your fostering application form, we will commence all the background checks. Additionally, we will assign you an assessor. This assessor will be responsible for producing your report, known as the Form F.
This document will form the subject of our next blog, so do keep an eye out for it.
In the meantime if you have any questions about fostering, you can email us at team@easternfosteringservices.com, call us on 01206 299775 or you can come to one of our fostering events, see here for further details.
Eastern Fostering Services - The small agency with a strong family feel
Tags: becoming a foster carer, becoming a foster family, becoming a fostering family, fostering, fostering application, fostering assessment, Fostering Cambridgeshire, fostering Essex, fostering Suffolk, how do I become a foster carer