Member News: Community Foster Care - Thanks for taking part in our survey – here’s what you said10/7/2018
A survey of carers from Community Foster Care has revealed high satisfaction rates in all areas. Carers were asked their views on all aspects of fostering, including support, allowance rates, training, activities and relationships with staff and social workers. In almost areas, the foster carers who responded rated Community Foster Care as ‘good’ or ‘very good’. Equally, levels of satisfaction were consistently around 80 per cent. Chief Executive of Community Foster Care Mark Kingston thanked carers for taking part in the survey. “It is imperative that we seek your feedback on a regular basis and that we learn from what you tell us,” he said. “Whilst we strive for perfection we recognise that there’s always room to improve. We firmly believe that our charity will be better for it. “It’s great that the overall satisfaction rates were so positive and there was little negativity. However, there were also some very constructive comments about how we can do a better job, in particular in terms of training and support groups.” Asked how satisfied carers are with the frequency of supervision, 97% were satisfied or extremely satisfied. A further 78 per cent were satisfied with the support received. Supervising social workers and placement support workers notched up 91% in the satisfaction ratings for understanding the needs of cared-for children. A reassuring 97% said they were satisfied or very satisfied that Community Foster Care listens to its carers. When it came to the level of allowances, 83% of those who responded were satisfied or extremely satisfied. Whilst the matching process of carer with children scored highly, 34% of those who responded said they’d like better quality information about children before their placement begins. All Community Foster Care’s carers in Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Lancashire and Cumbria were invited to take part in the survey. They could choose whether to remain anonymous. Source: www.communityfostercare.co.uk As an agency which prides itself on ‘Putting Children’s Futures First,’ we are always seeking ways to improve and strengthen the support package we provide to our foster cares in order to meet the needs of the children and young people in their care. To this end we have been in negotiation with a clinical psychologist based in the North East with regards to how we could utilise his knowledge, skills and experience to support foster carers and staff with the fostering task. His work is underpinned by attachment and resilience theories which fits with the therapeutic parenting model used by Team Fostering, The Secure Base Model. We are very excited to be launching a psychological support service in June 2018. The aim of the service is to provide support and information to carers and staff that will enable them to be able to tailor care for individual children to provide an opportunity to recover from their early traumatic experiences. The psychologist we have collaborated with will be available in four of the Team Fostering offices; North Tyneside, Middlesbrough, Sheffield and Papplewick; for one day each month. There are two elements to the service; a workshop which is open to all carers and staff in the morning followed by individual consultations in the afternoon. By adopting this model we hope to be able to reach as many carers as possible, both to enhance their understanding of the impact of trauma on children and how to help them recover from their experiences, but also to have the opportunity to talk in detail about particular issues. The service has just begun and will run as a pilot until Summer 2019. Source: www.teamfostering.co.uk |
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