Page 48 - Issue 112 May-June 2021

Fostering Foster care: could it be you? Dominic Stevenson talks about how fostering can be one of the most varied, challenging and rewarding job you could do. 48 Around 2,500 children in care are currently living with foster carers who are specially trained and supported to help their families manage their disabilities. On top of this, every year around 30,000 more children coming into care each year across the UK. That is why we need to recruit more skilled foster carers to ensure that every child has a foster carer who can meet their needs and help them flourish. Could you be one of them? Fostering is one of the most varied, challenging and rewarding jobs you can do. Fostering services are always recruiting more foster carers, particularly to look after disabled children, but also teenagers, unaccompanied asylum seekers and groups of brothers and sisters. Like other jobs working with children, fostering isn’t easy but is very rewarding and makes a huge difference to children’s lives. “Fostering isn’t easy but is very rewarding” Foster carers are childcare experts working with a team of other professionals providing children with the highest standard of care. Alongside this professionalism, they offer these children love, warmth and a positive experience of family life. Different types of fostering There is nothing quite like fostering if you want to work with children. Working from home, it’s possible to combine fostering with caring for your own children, or to combine fostering and other work, depending on the age and needs of the children in your care. There are many different types of fostering, such as SEN112 senmagazine.co.uk