Foster with us
Our primary aim is to provide a high-quality fostering service to looked after children and young people by providing foster placements where each child will have stability, and a warm, safe, caring environment in which to thrive.
You can read our whole statement of purpose here.
F5 Foster Care’s objectives are:
- To ensure that all children and young people are placed within families that match their racial, cultural and religious background as closely as possible.
- To utilise our strong connections to attract Foster Families from a diverse range of backgrounds and skill sets to increase the availability of placement opportunities more closely matched to individual needs.
- To ensure a child’s physical and emotional health needs are met and a positive healthy lifestyle is achieved
- To ensure all the children we look after benefit from educational opportunities
- To actively promote participation by engaging with children and young people to express their views and opinions and use such feedback to develop services
- To continually seek external feedback and evaluation to develop and improve our service.
- To provide support services that ensure the retention of our skilled foster carers
- Ensure all foster carers have access to support and guidance from a qualified Social Worker
- To provide opportunities for on-going learning and professional development for the service, our foster carers and employees.
- To deliver a child-centred approach throughout our practice, having the child or young person’s welfare and wishes evident in all our decisions.
F5 Foster Care provides a service to responsible local authorities who require placements for looked after children across the Midlands. We operate a robust matching process based on good information from the referring authority, sound knowledge of the capabilities of the carers and good professional judgement, in consultation with the child’s social worker and the social workers of any children already in placement.
When matching children with carers we will seek to ensure the following, unless any of these are inconsistent with promoting the welfare of the child:
- Siblings are placed together
- Contact with birth family and friends is facilitated
- Children are placed as close to home as possible
- Children are placed with carers that match their racial, cultural, religious and linguistic background as closely as possible
- Children are permanently matched with carers as soon as possible, where this is consistent with their care plan
- Wherever possible there will be a period of introduction before the placement commences
- The views of the child are sought prior to and, on a regular basis, during the placement
- Birth parents are encouraged and supported in playing a positive role, whilst their child is looked after
- The educational and health care needs, including any needs arising from a child’s disability are met by the proposed placement