My diary of the Eastern Fostering Services Trip to the Isle of White – by L, aged 14.
Lucy Stevens - 29th June 2023
29th May We got picked up in the morning by a minibus from Colchester Stadium. I was so excited! It was really good to see the other children that I know through Eastern Fostering Services. From there we went on to Ingatestone to pick up some other children and staff. Then it was off to Southampton to catch the ferry to the ISLE OF WIGHT! I’d never been on a ferry before and was a bit worried I may get sea sick but guess what? I didn’t, so at least I now know I don’t get sea sick. When we got to the Isle of Wight, we had to walk on a floating bridge. I was so excited. We had
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Fostering Training: The impact of trauma on brain development.
Lucy Stevens - 26th June 2023
This week, Eastern Fostering Services put on some excellent training looking at brain development in children and adolescents and how it is affected by trauma experienced in utero, infancy, childhood and adolescence. A synopsis: Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) have the potential to cause trauma to children. ACE include but are not limited to: NeglectAbuseDomestic Violence in the homeParental ill mental healthSubstance dependencySeparation of parents/caregiversImprisonment of a parent or caregiver Where one or more of these are experienced by children, they can have a profound effect on the physical development of the brain, which in turn can have an impact on the child throughout childhood, adolescence and adulthood. How is the brain affected by Adverse Childhood Experiences and subsequent trauma? Living
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Fostering Carer Support and Nurturing. It’s not just children we nurture!
Lucy Stevens - 13th June 2023
At Eastern Fostering Services we support and nurture our carers too The early days of being a newly approved foster carer with your first child can feel overwhelming. Some days are challenging, and you can feel very much like a fish out of water. It’s natural at times to have feelings of failure, worry and self-reproach, which you may find difficult to share with other professionals you want to show you’re competent and capable. This is where Sharon comes in! Carers nurturing carers As the Carer Nurture Lead, Sharon’s role is to offer support to carers who are just beginning their journey - and indeed those who are well on their way – but in a more personal and less
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Foster Care Fortnight is over, but our work is not done!
Eleanor Newman - 28th May 2023
A big thank you We’ve reached the end of Foster Care Fortnight 2023. It seems to fly past faster each year! This year the theme was #Fostering communities and we have had real fun celebrating the fantastic fostering community at Eastern Fostering Services. Over the last two weeks, we’ve posted blogs from foster carers, videos from carers and the team, and information about our community at Eastern Fostering Services and how we look after the carers and children at its centre. Lots of you have liked, shared and commented on our posts and sent us messages of encouragement; we wanted to thank you sincerely for this. It makes a big difference. For those of you who are foster carers already,
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Lockdown Luck
Camilla Simson - 27th May 2023
It was April 2020. Covid had put a halt on my work, and here I was, on my own in my one-bedroom flat in London. I’d just come out of a long relationship and my father had recently died, so it really felt like a new chapter was needed. But the country – indeed the world – was under lockdown. Not the ideal circumstances for embarking on a new adventure in life. I was however quite clear on what my new chapter was to be; I was going to leave London to upsize my home and I wanted to become a foster carer. I just had to work out how I was going to do that. Knowing virtually nothing about
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Support communities
Lucy Stevens - 26th May 2023
This Foster Care Fortnight, we’re taking a look at Fostering Communities and celebrating the role they play in successful fostering. At Eastern Fostering Services, we recognise that one of the most important functions of all fostering communities is to offer support to foster carers and the children and young people they care for. So, today we want to look at take a look at the Eastern Fostering Services team and the role it plays as a vital Fostering Community. Who is the Eastern Fostering Services team? The team at Eastern Fostering Services is small but perfectly formed. In every area of the agency, we have been able to attract people who are passionate about children and the opportunities fostering can
Tags: becoming a foster carer, fostercare fortnight, Fostering Cambridgeshire, fostering Essex, fostering Suffolk
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Fostering Communities: The professional community
Lucy Stevens - 25th May 2023
It often comes as a surprise to prospective foster carers when they first realise the number of professionals that work with children in foster care. Often the first introduction foster carers get to the professional community is during the Preparation to Foster training, which takes place during the assessment process. “It was the first time, I fully appreciated just how many professionals are involved with the children and how important it must be to invest in these relationships,” said one of our recently approved carers. This was an astutely made point. It is indeed important to build good relationships within the professional community, to understand their roles, their objectives and how best to work with them to promote the well
Tags: becoming a foster carer, fostercare fortnight, fostering, Fostering Cambridgeshire, fostering Essex
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Fostering communities: fostering social workers
Eleanor Newman - 24th May 2023
Reflections of an old Social Worker Today, I am reflecting on one of those life events that makes being a Social Worker for nearly 30 years worthwhile. I claim no credit for the achievements of this incredibly special woman, I am just grateful for being part of her journey. I first met ‘Belle” (she is a Disney fan, so we agreed on this as her pseudonym) in the 1990’s as her fostering Social Worker. She was a feisty, mixed-up teen, rightly angry with the world but also clearly possessing a strong and positive spirit. We immediately struck up a great rapport that has now stood the test of time, having just been to her wedding in 2022. As I write
Tags: becoming a foster carer, fostercare fortnight, Fostering Cambridgeshire, fostering Essex, fostering Suffolk
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What do Fostering Communities mean to us at Eastern Fostering Services?
Lucy Stevens - 23rd May 2023
As we celebrate fostering communities this Foster Care Fortnight, some of the team members at Eastern Fostering Services share their views. Sandra Sandra is one of our senior supervising social workers. She has many years’ experience supporting carers and children and she is a fierce advocate of both. “I have been part of the Eastern Fostering Services community for nearly 7 years, as a supervising social worker. I grew up in a fostering family from the age of 6 months and my parents were LA foster carers. Fostering was very different then with no Independent Fostering Agencies and very little support for carers. Eastern Fostering Services offers amazing support and I’m sure anyone who fosters for us feels part of
Tags: foster care, fostercare fortnight
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Being part of a fostering community when you’re a man
Steve Ellis - 19th May 2023
“It would be easy to think that as a male foster carer, you might be overlooked or treated differently but that’s not the case at all at Eastern Fostering Services.” Lots of people think that foster carers are all women. It’s true that women make up the majority of the fostering community but at Eastern Fostering Services, there are many men who take an active role in fostering. I really like the fact that our community of foster carers at Eastern Fostering Services is so diverse. We need to be when you think about it as the children we care for are also a diverse crew! We’ve got men, women, couples, single carers, carers of different ethnicities, different religions or
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