Training & Support

Working Together as a Team

Child Care Bureau accepts applications to become a foster parent from a range of people, from those with vast experience of fostering to complete novices. We therefore provide a comprehensive range of training programmes for all of our carers.

Fostering a child or young person is a complex and very much a team task. Therefore it is important to work as a team member and we give you the tools with which to carry out that task.

Our training is carried out both by external professional trainers and our own Social Workers and is a continuous programme. Each foster carer is allocated a Child Care Bureau Social Worker which includes weekly telephone contact and fortnightly home visits to complete formal supervision and support.

All Child Care Bureau foster parents are provided with emergency support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, every week of the year.

Comprehensive Support Service

Child Care Bureau provides all foster parents with membership to FosterTalk, a not-for-profit organisation focussed on providing high quality, professional, independent support to foster care households. Membership provides a comprehensive package of support including:

FosterTalk was born out of the requirements of Foster Carers, who were searching for a better and more comprehensive support package. The services offered were developed by highly experienced social workers, children’s services experts, fostering service providers and Foster Carers.

Child Care Bureau also provide Foster Parents with access to FISS (Foster Carers Independent Support Service) FosterTalk's advocacy service for Foster Parents facing difficult situations such as the investigation of an allegation.