What type of Foster Care is right for me?

The types of foster care placements available to suit your unique situation

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Every child in need of a safe and secure home has unique needs which means a wide variety of foster care placements are required.

Here's the thing. There’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to becoming a foster carer. Our foster carers offer a wide range of short-term, long-term, and respite foster placements to meet the needs of the vulnerable children and young people.  Below we aim to answer any questions you may have around the types of foster care provision needed. Whatever you decide is most suited to your situation, know we will be there to support you for as long as you need us.

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What foster placement options are available?

  • Short term placements: Short term placements are needed while there is an ongoing legal process to consider the future of the child. This might be a plan for reunification back to family, long term fostering or adoption. Short term can be up to two years.
  • Long-term placements: Long-term placements offer stability and consistency for children, young people and sibling groups and include young people until 18 years and beyond.
  • Respite and holiday placements: Caring for children and young people for a very short period of time, maybe overnight, for a weekend or for a fortnight, to help give regular foster carers, birth families and children, rest and support.
  • Fostering unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASCs): Our experienced foster carers are fully equipped to manage the various challenges associated with caring for refugee children, including managing any language and cultural barriers and acting as advocates throughout the ensuing legal process.
  • Fostering for adoption: Diagrama Fostering’s sister agency Diagrama Adoption supports prospective adopters who can consider fostering before adoption – for when adoption looks the likely path for the child in care, but there is still a small chance they could be reunited with their birth family. Please contact our adoption team  for more information.
  • Sibling placements: Offering multiple placements to keep brothers and sisters together. We help our foster carers fully prepare for sibling placements. Keeping siblings together under one roof is a priority for Diagrama Fostering.
  • Parent & Child Placements: Parent and Child Fostering is a specialist type of fostering where the child (often a very young baby) is placed with their parent(s) for support, guidance and/or assessment as to whether they can successfully parent their child. This is generally a short term, task centered role that requires foster carers to work closely with the birth parent(s) and other professionals to ensure safety for the child whilst enabling the parent to care for their child. Parents can range from teenage parents to more mature parents and the children can be anything from newborns to older children generally under school age.
  • Special requirements: Placements for children with special needs are provided on a full time or respite basis. Within our team we have foster carers with specific skills and experience to manage a range of special needs
  • Emergency or unplanned placements: Our emergency placement foster carers will accept children at very short notice – often on the same day – and until longer-term arrangements for care can be made. It is not uncommon for these placements to remain ongoing if this is suitable. If you are from a local authority and have a request for an emergency, unplanned or short notice placement outside of office hours, please, call 07768 372750.

Children and young people receive high-quality care. They receive individualised support from skilled and genuinely caring foster carers. Children and young people have their needs met and make good progress in many areas of their lives.

Ofsted inspection, 2019

You deserve outstanding support - so that's what we deliver

No matter what type of foster care you decide is right for you, we will be on hand 24/7 to offer you support, guidance and training throughout your journey. You will be valued and listened to. You will never face a challenge alone. As a foster carer with Diagrama you will not only receive excellent training, pay and allowances – you will also benefit from expert support throughout every stage of your fostering career.

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“We chose to foster so that we could make a difference. Inviting another child into your home and allowing them to find some stability, come alive and begin to really thrive is the best family decision we have made, and I couldn’t recommend it highly enough.”

Chris and Nic Kimmance 

Foster Carer Stories You'll Want To Read

Foster Carer Sharon Lovelock encourages others to foster during Foster Care Fortnight

martin.newton@diagrama.org

Fitting in fostering with a career and my family life

Foster carer Beth, 25, helps launch new awareness campaign

“I have learnt to be there to encourage and support them and to share in their sense of achievement”

I wouldn’t have missed being a foster parent for the world

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“Seeing the changes in the parent; the small changes that they are able to make is incredibly rewarding to see, giving that opportunity to the parent and knowing you’ve been a part of that makes it all worthwhile” 

Diagrama Parent and Child Foster Carer.

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Making a difference is simple – just take the next step to become a foster carer

This is your chance to become an inspiring role model that children in need of foster care desperately deserve.

Taking the next step is simple:

 

  1. BOOK A CALL WITH OUR TEAM - You book a call at a time that is convenient and works around you.
  2. FIND OUT ABOUT FOSTERING - Speak with our friendly foster care team and ask any questions you may have.
  3. KNOW WHETHER FOSTERING IS RIGHT FOR YOU – Feel confident you have honest, reliable and comprehensive information to understand whether fostering is the right pathway for you.

 

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Want to make a real life-changing difference to the life of a vulnerable child or young person? Not sure whether you have what it takes? Foster carers are ordinary people like you, doing amazing things with the children they care for. Ready to find out more about this rewarding career?