Industry News: Become Advisory Group of care leavers discuss their COVID-19 lockdown experiences10/7/2020
 You can listen to the podcast on SoundCloud here
The Become Advisory Group has created a podcast reflecting on their experiences of the COVID-19 lockdown and what they’ve learned about themselves. The group are care-experienced young adults from across England who play a vital role in our work and ensure we and other organisations are listening to lived experience in the most meaningful ways. In this episode, Sam Turner (Policy and Participation Manager) talks to Alice, George, Kayleigh, and Leanne about various aspects of lockdown life, including what they’ve found challenging, coping mechanisms, positive aspects, and what they’re most looking forward to as we move out of lockdown. They’ve also produced some ‘wellbeing tips’ (below) which we encourage you to share. After listening, please let us know whether your experiences have been different and what you’re appreciating more right now. You can join the conversation on social media by finding us on Instagram at BecomeCharity, on Twitter at @Become1992 or on Facebook at BecomeCharity. Some of the discussions in this recording might bring up certain feelings or emotions for you, particularly if you’re also someone with care experience. If you’re in care or a care leaver and you’d like some advice or support, or a friendly voice to listen, remember that we’re always here for you. From Monday to Friday (10am-5pm), you can call us on 0800 023 2033 or email us at advice@becomecharity.org.uk. The number of care-experienced young adults contacting us for advice and support about their finances, housing situation, their mental health has more than doubled because of the pandemic. Some have just wanted to speak to someone about how they’re feeling because they have no-one else to turn to. If you would like to support our work, please donate to our emergency appeal. We hope you enjoy listening! Source: www.becomecharity.org.uk  Team Fostering is a not for profit fostering agency, with an annual turnover of over £9m, based in the North East, Yorkshire & the East Midlands. We have been successfully supporting children & young people living in foster care to achieve positive outcomes since 2001.
We are now looking for Non-Executive Directors, based within this geographical footprint, who have senior-level knowledge, experience & expertise in the foster care sector and more specifically from within the independent fostering sector. We require candidates who can sign up fully to the ethical & not for profit stance which underpins all that we do to make a positive difference to the lives of children & young people. The successful candidate(s) will also provide a creative contribution to the Board via objective criticism and independent judgement on issues of strategy, performance and resourcing of the agency, including involvement in key appointments & standards of conduct. The post holder(s) will be independent of any of the company’s interested parties and bring a degree of objectivity & impartiality to the Board’s deliberations and play a valuable role monitoring executive management. This is a part time role requiring, as a minimum, 30 day’s work per year and a minimum of 1.5 days worked each month equating to £13,335.75 per annum. Part of this monthly commitment is attendance at a monthly Board meeting which may be held in one of our North Shields, Middlesbrough, Leeds, Sheffield or South Normanton offices. Other responsibilities and pieces of work taken on, at the direction of the Board, are paid at an hourly rate of £59.27. The closing date for application for this role is 9am on Monday 13 July 2020 and interviews are scheduled for Thursday 30 July 2020. For further information, please ring Alex Cooper, Retained Consultant on 0191 653 1049 To apply, please complete an Application Form and Equal Opportunities Form (available below) and return to hr@teamfostering.co.uk no later than 9am on Monday 13 July 2020. Please note Team Fostering does not accept CVs. Full details and application documents here  Location: Hampshire Salary: £1,900 (+VAT) per Form F + £33 per hour (initial visits) + £27 per hour (support and supervision of foster carers) Closing Date: 14/07/2020 Interview Date: 23/07/2020 Hours: Variable Home based (during Covid-19); Visits and travelling required after Covid-19 pandemic
Covering Hampshire TACT is the UK’s largest specialist charity provider of fostering. Our core work involves providing high quality and well supported fostering families for children and young people in the care of local authorities. Working in partnership with local authorities from our offices across England, Wales and Scotland, we are dedicated to providing creative, effective and outcome-focused services. We also campaign on behalf of children and young people in care, carers and adoptive families and are a leading voice in the sector. Our vision is to provide better lives for our children and young people. We want to develop our work in Hampshire we are seeking to recruit sessional Social Workers to undertake initial visits and assess prospective foster families. Duties may include:
Rates of Pay (depending on type of work offered)
Please see the Self-Employed Sessional Assessing Social Worker Job Information Pack for a full breakdown of the role and rates.
Closing Date: Tuesday 14th July 2020 Interviews: Thursday 23rd July 2020 (Via video-call) TACT reserve the right to close the vacancy once we have received sufficient applications, so we advise you to submit your application as early as possible to prevent disappointment. Safeguarding is everyone’s business and TACT believe that only the people with the right skills and values should work in social work. As part of TACT’s commitment to safeguarding, we properly examine the skills, experience, qualifications and values of potential staff in relation to our work with vulnerable young children. We use rigorous and consistent recruitment approaches to help safeguard TACT’s young people. All our staff are expected to work in line with TACT’s safeguarding policies. TACT does not accept unsolicited CVs from external recruitment agencies nor accept the fees associated with them. Full details and application documents here  Location: Hampshire Salary: £29,700 pa + £2,000 pa Out of Hours Allowance + £500 pa Homeworking Allowance Closing Date: 14/07/2020 Interview Date: 23/07/2020 Hours: 35 hours per week TACT, the UK’s largest fostering and adoption charity now has over 500 dedicated carers, who look after over 600 children and young people across the country. Our reputation and growth rests upon our strength in providing successful placements. As a charity, we do not have shareholders who receive profits and we invest all of our surplus income into service, staff, carers, and children’s development.
Our vision is to provide better lives for our children and young people. A post has arisen for a Supervising Social Worker covering the Hampshire area in this home based role. The successful candidate will be part of the wider, dynamic and forward thinking registered office in Hither Green. This role is fixed term for 6 months, with the possibility of extending this due to development and growth of the region. We are interested in individuals for whom quality of service is paramount and in those who share our commitment to working in partnership with children and their foster carers in the development of the agency. The successful candidate should also have post qualifying experience in family placement work or other child care settings as well as a good working knowledge of relevant legislation and child protection procedures. TACT offer an excellent employee benefits package including:
You will need to be DipSW, CSS or CQSW qualified and registered with Social Work England. An enhanced DBS clearance is also required and is requested for you by TACT. The successful applicant will be required to support Duty and Ouf of Hours on a rota basis and will be paid an out of hours’ allowance of £2,000 per annum once participating in the rota. Closing: Tuesday 14th July 2020 Interviews: Thursday 23rd July 2020 (via Video) Safeguarding is everyone’s business and TACT believe that only the people with the right skills and values should work in social work. As part of TACT’s commitment to safeguarding, we properly examine the skills, experience, qualifications and values of potential staff in relation to our work with vulnerable young children. We use rigorous and consistent recruitment approaches to help safeguard TACT’s young people. All our staff are expected to work in line with TACT’s safeguarding policies. TACT does not accept unsolicited CVs from external recruitment agencies nor accept the fees associated with them. TACT reserve the right to close the vacancy once we have received sufficient applications, so we advise you to submit your application as early as possible to prevent disappointment. Full details and application documents here  Location: Norwich Salary: £40,718 to £45,240 Contract Type: Permanent / Full Time (35 hours per week) Closing Date: Thursday 23 July 2020 Please note, the role will require an element of travel to other Break locations across Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire
Break delivers a wide range of outstanding services providing exceptional outcomes for vulnerable children, young people and their families, and is looking to develop and diversify those services to increase our support and geographical spread while always striving for continuous improvement. This is an excellent opportunity to join an expanding and vibrant voluntary organisation with services located in Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire and make a positive impact on young lives as a member of our Senior Leadership Team. You will be passionate about changing young lives and experienced in managing teams and staff to ensure they are able to provide the best support for our beneficiaries. The Operations Manager (Children and Families) will be leading, managing and supporting the management teams of our diverse services, which include children’s homes, fostering, short break services for children with disabilities, family assessment services and our therapeutic provision. You will work across Break working to ensure that our services work collaboratively whilst ensuring regulatory compliance. We aspire to excellence and employ experienced, resilient, skilful and creative senior managers to inspire our service delivery and provide support to our teams. You will have a background in delivering services to children and young people either with a social work qualification or a relevant professional qualification. We welcome those experienced in delivering excellent residential child care. If you would like to discuss the post please contact Rachel Cowdry on 01603 670100 or email on Rachel.cowdry@break-charity.org. Closing Date: 23rd July 2020 Interview dates: 31st July for Safe Care/Warner Interviews / 3rd August for Formal Panel Full details here  Location: Norwich Salary: £47,505 - £52,782 (up to £58,61 relating to performance) (Pay award pending) Contract Type: Permanent / Full Time Closing Date: Thursday 16 July 2020 About us
Break has been delivering care to children, young people and their families for over 50 years. We have a wide range of services (majority of which are Ofsted regulated) spanning Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Suffolk and have a growth agenda across the region for the next 3-5 years. About you We are seeking an experienced, dynamic senior manager who has the drive and commitment to lead our care services and support our improving for excellence agenda. You will be a qualified social worker with experience of leading multiple teams or work streams, with a commitment to driving forward a range of improvement agendas across all services. You will have a track record of developing talent, effectively leading and building teams. With excellent communication and interpersonal skills, you will be confident building and maintaining relationships, both internally and externally and will have a relentless focus on positive outcomes, creating new and better means to achieve service success. We're looking for a proactive can-do individual who can hit the ground running, demonstrating positive impact through engagement and outstanding outcomes. We would welcome candidates with experience of a wide spectrum of children, young people and family services, including residential child care. If you feel you have the skills, experience and drive to join this dynamic and successful charity we would like to hear from you as soon as possible. In return, we will offer you a supportive work environment with a fantastic team, and a smarter working approach to nurture your career with us. We need you to help us “change young lives” Closing date: 16th July 2020 Interview dates: Warner/Safe Care on 28th July/ Formal on 29th July Contact Rachel Cowdry for an informal discussion on 07834 130443 or email rachel.cowdry@break-charity.org Full details here  Circa: £33,000, plus on call allowance Department/Division: England North Location: Fareham, Hampshire Contract Type: Permanent Full Time Closing Date: 10 July 2020 The role
Our Wessex Fostering service in Hampshire provides long and short-term foster placements predominantly for children aged eight years and over. We continuously aim to provide safe, secure and stable family placements within the community so that young people can experience a positive model of life and for the future. We want to fully understand our children and young people in order to provide a tailored plan to support their needs and ensure they are able to build positive relationships with others. We are a small, developing fostering service, located in Fareham but covering the Hampshire and surrounding areas. Your base will be in the Fareham office. You will be responsible for providing professional supervision and developmental support to foster carers, including advice and guidance to fostering families. You will be part of a small team and will have had exposure to managing multi agency partnerships. This position also requires a strong understanding of the therapeutic model including PACE. You will be required to provide telephone on call support for our foster carers which is currently up to a maximum of 4 nights per month (approx.) for our England wide on call service. Our team including foster carers are trained to a high standard; understanding attachment and trauma work along with specific interventions We are looking for a Fostering Supervising Social Worker to join our team working 37 hours a week. This will be mainly Monday to Friday during the day but there will be some flexibility required to meet the needs of the service which will include some evening and weekend working. This is office based but there maybe the possibility of home working. You will be responsible for providing professional supervision and developmental support to foster carers, including advice and guidance to fostering families. You will be part of a small team and will have had exposure to managing multi agency partnerships. This position also requires a strong understanding of the therapeutic model including PACE. You will be required to provide telephone on call support for our foster carers which is currently up to a maximum of 4 nights per month (approx.) for our England wide on call service. Our team including foster carers are trained to a high standard; understanding attachment and trauma work along with specific interventions You will make a difference by:
You will need:
The way we work We work to make sure every child and young person has the love, support and opportunity they need to reach their potential. If you share the same vision, we want you to join our team. Have a look at our behaviours and values to understand more about the way we work here. Rewards We want our employees to feel valued and rewarded for the vital work they do. When you work with us, we'll recognise your efforts with generous annual leave, a comprehensive employer-matched pension scheme and a range of deals and discounts on our dedicated benefits portal. Find out more about our exclusive Action for Children benefits here. For safe and happy childhoods At Action for Children, we protect and support children and young people, providing practical and emotional care and support, ensuring their voices are heard, and campaigning to bring lasting improvements to their lives. Last year, we helped more than 387,000 children and families across the UK. For more information, please contact Maria Sorrentino on 07917482469 or email recruitmentservice@actionforchildren.org.uk We are committed to safer recruitment practices to protect our service users; therefore, all applicants are expected to have an understanding of and commitment to safeguarding best-practice. Action for Children is passionate about promoting equality, valuing diversity and working inclusively. We welcome applications from all suitably qualified persons particularly people with Disabilities and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic applicants, as these groups are currently under-represented in our workforce. Full details and application documents here  At The Foster Care Co-operative (FCC) we remain committed in supporting our children, current foster carers and anyone who may be interested in fostering in the future. This means that despite the current lockdown measures, FCC’s wealth of knowledge and experience is still here for you!
We moved to working from home for all staff members to prevent spreading the COVID-19 virus. Despite recent lockdown easing announced by our Prime Minister, we are continuing to work from home at the current time. However, you can continue to reach us as normal on our central office telephone numbers and 24hr support remains in place at all times. Now, more than ever in these uncertain times, we need your help. Children are in desperate need of care. You could make a real difference to a child’s life. New foster carer enquires and applications, are very welcome and the following steps are in place:
Additionally, as applications can take between six and eight months, now is a great time to apply. Why not make a no-obligation enquiry HERE to see if you qualify? Source: www.fostercarecooperative.co.uk  At Team Fostering, we recruit and train foster carers that are able to look after a range of children and young people, including young people who have recently had their own children.
This is a specialist type of fostering referred to across the industry as 'Parent and Child Fostering,' the aim of which is to provide support and guidance not only to the infant but also the parent, usually the mother. The aim is that the parent may eventually provide independent care for their child. Parent and Child Fostering is an alternative to referring young parents to live in residential units and it helps to provide the support needed at the early stages of their relationship, a very crucial time for bonding. Without this support, such relationships can often break down and this could lead to the separation of the child from the parent. The Benefits of Parent and Child Fostering Fostering a parent and child is not an easy task, but the rewards are huge and we have many foster carers at Team Fostering with specialist training for the role. Foster carers can help the development of a bond between parent and child, giving both a brighter future, and to see an attachment grow first-hand has been described by our foster carers as nothing short of amazing. Throughout Parent and Child Fostering, carers offer support that provides young parents with insight into the lifelong parenting skills required for looking after a child independently. This is done in a stable environment that helps keep focus on the child, with access to valuable resources that may not have been available without the fostering setup. In turn, the child of the young person benefits from extra support received by all, providing them with the best start in life. As Team Fostering consider Parent and Child Fostering to be a specialist role we provide a slightly different support package for those who offer this. A higher level of one-to-one support and training will be provided to any foster carers that look after a parent and child, and higher foster carer fees are paid in comparison to some other types of fostering. Team Fostering is an independent, not-for-profit fostering agency operating across the North East, Yorkshire and East Midlands. We have strong, ethical values and behaviours and continually look to welcome new foster carers to the team. Read our eligibility criteria by clicking here. If you're interested in learning more about fostering, you can get in touch in one of the following ways: call us on 0800 292 2003 send an online enquiry by clicking here email us via info@teamfostering.co.uk Our offices are in North Tyneside, Middlesbrough, Leeds, Sheffield and South Normanton. Source: www.teamfostering.co.uk  On 24 June, the Independent Care Review (ICR) published an evidence framework, comprising of research and evidence collated and analysed throughout the review’s three years of work as it undertook a root and branch review of the care system in Scotland. Between 2017 and 2020, the Care Review heard the experiences over 5,500 care experienced infants, children, young people, adults and members of the paid and unpaid workforce had of Scotland’s ‘care system’, and their vision for what needed to change. Their voice was the cornerstone of everything the Care Review did, providing the direction and benchmark for the research, data and evidence the review sought to gather, commission and scrutinise. The framework explains the participation and engagement undertaken and the outputs of the Care Review’s commissioning processes. The review’s work also drew on an extensive body of research from academics and researchers nationally and internationally, across all sectors, so the framework also lists a comprehensive bibliography of sources consulted. This framework is intended to help navigate the vast amount of research engaged with and undertaken, and to signpost to relevant reports, documents, websites and organisations, to facilitate a more in depth look at a range of issues which were highlighted during the different stages of the Care Review. The Review formally closes its doors on 30 June 2020, and from 1 July it will be superseded by The Promise, a new oversight body responsible for making sure that Scotland implements change for the care system. The Promise will be chaired by Fiona Duncan, who also led the Care Review. It will initially be incubated within the Scottish Government but, like the Care Review, will operate independently. Over the next few months, The Promise will appoint a team to support the change programme and recruit an oversight body. At least half the members of this new body will be people with lived experience of Scotland’s care system. To be kept up-to-date with The Promise, follow @ThePromiseScot on Twitter or the new website which is being developed at www.thepromise.scot Source:
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