Fostering Coffee Mornings – Eastern Fostering Services
Lucy Stevens - 8th November 2017
Come and have a chat to us about fostering. Meet the team, chat to our carers, have a bit of cake! All welcome. Call 01206 299775 for more information.
More InfoA Journey into Foster Caring – Eastern Fostering Services
Lucy Stevens - 8th November 2017
The view of Narnia This is the first post from Lucy Stevens who, along with her family, is embarking on the process of becoming a foster carer. She will be chronicling the story of her journey via this regular blog. I’m on a journey into foster caring. This journey of mine is a little different from the norm. For me, it’s a bit like the C.S.Lewis book, ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.’ For those who are unfamiliar with the story, the main character, Lucy stumbles upon a whole new world on the other side of a wardrobe she is hiding in. The world she ends up in, Narnia, is full of new, life-changing things to discover. The way is littered with potential pitfalls
More InfoThe Experience of Going Through The Fostering Process – Eastern Fostering Services
Lucy Stevens - 8th November 2017
Home sweet home Last week I went on a home visit to a lady who had enquired about fostering through our agency. She’d been on our website, liked what she’d seen and dropped us an email. I’d been the one to call her and answer her questions. I’d been the one to book in a suitable time to visit her at home to talk in more depth. And, along with my colleague, I’d been the one to go to her lovely home. For an hour and a half we chatted and she asked us lots of questions, which we answered honestly. We gave her a realistic picture of what she might expect from fostering. We also asked her
More InfoFoster Caring – The Application Form – Eastern Fostering Services
Lucy Stevens - 8th November 2017
I’m not going to lie to you. The application form? It’s a brute. My brother has a bit of a phobia of application forms and if he caught sight of this specimen, he’d be running to hide behind the sofa quicker than he did when he first saw Michael Jackson’s Thriller. How have I gone two years working for Eastern Fostering Services without truly studying the application form? Careless, that’s what I’ve been. Well, this week I’ve had my eyes well and truly opened. There I was serenely thumbing through the application form when my eyes fell upon four relatively harmless words: Every. Address. Since. Birth. For about three seconds my thumbing continued unabated until…
More InfoAn Assessor Calls – Eastern Fostering Services
Lucy Stevens - 8th November 2017
An assessor calls… It’s Saturday morning and the house is now (reasonably) tidy. This is unusual for any day of the week but particularly for a Saturday. Today, however, is no ordinary Saturday – today is the day our assessor is coming. The assessment form is a document compiled by an assessor (who is usually also a social worker) which presents you as foster carers to the approval panel. Once approved, the document is also used to present you to the local authority when you’re being put forward as a potential carer for a child. It highlights your motivations, your family dynamics, your strengths and your weaknesses. Our assessor will visit us approximately eight times to gather all the
More InfoSkills to Foster Training – Eastern Fostering Services
Lucy Stevens - 8th November 2017
Skills to foster My husband Jim and I first met each other at work. He always struck me as a great person to be around: intelligent, insightful and fair but with a wicked sense of humour. As we headed off together last week to attend the Skills to Foster training, I was taken straight back to the days when we used to work together every day. I was thinking how nice it was to be going to the same place at the same time for once. I was thinking that spending two days during the working week together was a rare boon. I was excited that, as a couple; we would be learning more about something we care
More InfoThe Early Years – Eastern Fostering Services
Lucy Stevens - 8th November 2017
The assessment is underway and we’re starting from the beginning, or as the form F calls it, the Early Years. Our assessor has sent us a list of questions as homework in preparation for her next visit this weekend. As I’ve mentioned in earlier blogs I work for Eastern Fostering Services but I am also a ghost-writer. Specifically, I write people’s autobiographies for them. I ask my clients all manner of questions about their childhood, their parents, their experiences; their journey. I am rarely more comfortable than when I’m listening to people talking about themselves, and generally I don’t enjoy talking about myself to the same degree. So for me this is a little weird. The worm
More InfoThe Jungle in Calais – Eastern Fostering Services
Lucy Stevens - 8th November 2017
This instalment of the blog should really come with a disclaimer. Somewhere here in bold text should be words to this effect: *The actions of this blogger in no way constitute a statutory requirement for the fostering of asylum seeking children* Check. The objective of this blog is to give a detailed account of the fostering application process and I promise that this is what I’ll do, but I’m taking a little detour this week, a voluntary detour, via Calais… An early start It’s one o’clock in the morning when a group of us, including Eastern Fostering Services (EFS) agency director Eleanor Vanner, head off for three days’ volunteering at the camp known as
More InfoSafer Foster Caring – Eastern Fostering Services
Lucy Stevens - 8th November 2017
Blog Corner Safer Caring Safer caring is the means by which foster carers can ensure the safety and well-being of children and young people. Because the business of foster caring happens in the home of the carer, safer caring also aims to protect the well-being of carers and their families. It covers a broad range of themes, such as forming healthy attachments, dealing with difficult behaviour appropriately, ensuring the protection of each member of the household and minimising the risk of allegations made against carers. ‘But what does that mean in practise?’ Jim and I ask our assessor, Stef. The Safer Caring guidance is provided by The Fostering Network but each agency will have their own plan
More InfoThe Fostering Approval Panel – Eastern Fostering Services
Lucy Stevens - 8th November 2017
Today we had our last information gathering session with Stef, our assessor. Next week she’ll have the first draft of the Form F for us to look at and comment on. It feels like we’re coming to the end of something, but I know that it is in fact the start line we’re approaching. There is a huge blank canvas stretching before us and I am at once excited and terrified. There is of course one thing to get through first – panel. Appearing in front of the approval panel is a daunting experience for anyone. For me it is no different despite the fact that I have served as a panel member. Now that the information
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