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According to the BBC, the number of children in care is estimated to reach 100,000 by 2025, a rise of 36% in a decade [1].

At the same time, the cost of living crisis and the after-effects of Covid have all contributed to a reduction in the number of foster carers in the UK. This has meant that many more children now require support from a fostering agency in London and all over the country too.

WHY IS FOSTER CARE IMPORTANT?

Children of all ages and backgrounds may need foster care at some point if they can’t stay with their birth family. For some, foster care will be a short term solution, but for others, it could last several years.

Foster care is a very important part of supporting young people and your local community for a range of reasons.

The most important is that foster care can change a child’s life for the better. By providing them with a safe space and consistent care. Foster carers not only look after their everyday needs but help young people to thrive by supporting their unique educational needs. There is a significant attainment gap between children in care and children not in care. For example, around 15% of children in foster care receive a grade A-C in GCSE maths. Compared to around 60% of their peers. Giving them a regular routine and specific support can close this gap and set them up for future success.

Foster care is also very important in helping children to develop their emotional and social needs. Having to leave the family home for whatever reason is a traumatic experience. with some children who may have also experienced abuse or neglect. Foster care can support them in building / re-building their self-esteem, resilience, and social skills. Helping them in recovering from these traumatic early experiences.

If you’re new to foster care, this may sound a little daunting, but your local fostering agency in London, or your area will give you the tools and help you learn the skills you need to look after children with additional needs.

FOSTER CARE SUPPORTS FAMILIES FACING DIFFICULTIES

There are many reasons why children may need to go into foster care, from parental illness to cases where parents may require mental health or addiction support. The aim of foster care, wherever possible, is to help families to remain together. Foster care allows parents to receive support, too, and whether the foster care is a short or long term placement, all carers play a special role in helping to give not only the children but their families, essential support.

SUPPORTING YOUR LOCAL COMMUNITY

Foster care also plays an important role in supporting the local community. By giving children a safe space to live, foster carers are helping to address wider social problems, such as homelessness, poverty, and drug and alcohol abuse.

Ascent is a fostering agency in South London with many years of experience. If you’re thinking of becoming a foster carer, or you’d like to learn more about what it involves, please call us on 0204 538 3699 or have a look at the FAQ page on our website.

Fostering a child is one of the most rewarding and life-changing things you can do. According to Gov.uk, around three-quarters of looked-after children in the UK live in foster care. There’s always a growing need for more foster parents.

We’re here to support you on every step of the journey. From your first enquiry to welcoming foster children into your home and beyond.

Who Can Apply to Be a Foster Parent?

Becoming a foster parent might feel daunting at first. But the truth is that you don’t need special qualifications or a traditional family setup to foster. What matters most is your ability to provide a child with a safe, supportive and loving home.

Who Is Eligible to Foster?

You might be asking yourself what are the requirements to be a foster parent? Don’t worry, the basic criteria is simple. You can apply to be a foster parent if you:

• Are aged 21 or over.
• Have a spare room in your home.
• Are in good health, with enough energy to care for a child.
• Have a positive attitude, a good sense of humour, and a willingness to learn.
• Can offer a stable, loving environment.

There’s no upper age limit, and you don’t need to be wealthy or own your own home. Whether you’re single, married, in a partnership, or have children of your own — or not — you can foster as long as you’re able to meet the emotional and practical needs of a child.

Do I Need to Be a British Citizen?

You do not need to be a UK citizen to be a foster parent. However, you must be a full-time resident of the UK or have indefinite leave to remain. This ensures that you have the stability and legal right to care for a child in the UK for as long as necessary.

What Kind of People Make Great Foster Parents?

Children in foster care come from many different backgrounds and so do foster parents. What matters most is your ability to empathise with a child, understand their needs, and provide a safe, caring home.

There’s more than one type of foster care. It can be short-term, long-term or part of a plan to reunite a child with their birth family. That’s why flexibility is also important.

What’s the Process of Becoming a Foster Parent?

At Ascent Fostering, the process usually takes around 3 to 4 months. Here’s what to expect:

• Initial chat – We’ll start with a friendly phone call to answer your questions and learn more about you.
• Home visit – A member of our team will visit your home to explain the process and check the space and environment.
• Directors’ call – You’ll meet the Ascent Fostering Directors and learn more about our agency and values.
• Formal assessment – A trained social worker will get to know your lifestyle, experience, and reasons for fostering.
• Training and support – We’ll provide full training and preparation, so you feel confident and ready.
• Panel and approval – Your application will go to an independent fostering panel. Once approved, you’ll be ready to welcome a child into your home.

We understand the process can feel overwhelming at times but you won’t be alone. Our team is here to guide and support you every step of the way.

For more details, take a look at our Journey to Becoming a Therapeutic Foster Carer.

Is There Financial Support for Foster Carers?

Yes — every foster parent receives a weekly allowance to help cover the costs during the process of caring for a child. This includes everyday expenses like:

• Food and household costs.
• Clothing.
• Leisure activities.
• Travel.
• Pocket money.

At Ascent Fostering, we also provide:

• Additional financial support for holidays.
• 21 days of paid respite per year (PA).

Foster carers are classed as self-employed and can benefit from a special tax scheme called Qualifying Care Relief, which offers generous tax exemptions based on your fostering household.

Ready to Take the First Step or Want to Learn More?

If you’re curious about applying to be a foster parent or want to chat with someone who understands the process, we’d love to hear from you.

If you would like to find out more or apply to become a foster carer please click here, and we’ll call you. Alternatively, you can call us on 0203 757 0070 or attend one of our open mornings.

Choosing to become a foster carer is a big decision. It comes with various challenges and responsibilities, but is a hugely noble and rewarding decision that can positively impact the lives of children and teenagers in need.. If you are considering fostering in London, it helps to understand how it can benefit everyone involved.

WHAT IS FOSTERING?

In some circumstances, a child can no longer stay safely with their birth parents. This may be because of violence or neglect in the home, but it may also be because the parent is experiencing significant health issues and cannot adequately provide care. Fostering in London provides a safe home for the child on a temporary basis, ensuring that their needs are met but with the aim that the family will be reunited as soon as possible and safe to do so.

REASONS TO FOSTER

• Provide love,  nurture, stability and guidance to children and young people who have had their lives disrupted

There are a wide range of reasons as to why children may need to enter foster care, but all involve significant disruption to their lives, including the loss of their birth family. This can cause long-term behavioural issues and difficulty forming attachments. You can help them feel secure in a stable environment, so they have a chance to heal.  Ascent works with a number of  therapeutic professionals who are there to help our young people to acknowledge their loss and trauma and give them the tools to be able to better manager their feelings.

• Encourage children to grow and achieve

Part of your role as a foster carer is to encourage the children you care for to be the best they can be. From assisting them with their homework to encouraging their hobbies and simply showing them your unconditional support, you can play a significant role in helping them achieve their full potential, even if they have not had the best start in life.

• Prevent families from being permanently separated!

Even in cases with significant abuse, separating a child from their birth parents can cause trauma. The goal of fostering, unlike adoption, is always family reunification, in line with the considerable evidence that, in most cases, this is the healthiest outcome for everyone involved.

• Keep things local.

Children can be fostered a long way from home, but the general aim is to keep them in the same area. This allows them to maintain contact with their school, friends and biological family. You can become an important member of your community, helping local residents who are going through hard times. Ascent is a small family oriented fostering agency who supports foster carers in the South London and Kent/Surrey boarders.

• Combining fostering with other jobs/raising your own children

Fostering in London takes a lot of time, but it can fit in with the rest of your life. Depending on the specific needs of the child being fostered, you may be able to keep working as normal (including working from home). Fostering is also perfectly compatible with raising your own biological children providing they are fully onboard with the idea of welcoming a new child into the family.

YOU WILL RECEIVE SUPPORT AND TRAINING

Ascent Fostering knows how challenging fostering  can be  and offers various kinds of support, which includes your dedicated Supervising Social Worker, Out of Hours service, Therapeutic support and mentoring for your young people. We also extend a comprehensive training programme tailor made for you. You will also receive to a monetary allowance to provide for the children in your care and 21 days paid respite.

Almost every family experiences trouble at times. As a foster carer, you can provide unique support and a source of security for a child who has experienced significant hardship whilst still respecting that child’s original birth family. You will not be alone, here at Ascent we organise a number of social events throughout the year to bring our foster families together to help build strong networks for our carers.

Ascent fostering has been awarded “outstanding” by Ofsted and we hold a Platinum level with investors in people, these gradings are testament to the work we do to support young people in our carer and the carers who care for them.

If you would like to find out more about fostering, please contact us on 0203 757 0070 to have an informal chat or if you would like to receive our brochure please click here and we’ll get it straight to you.

Everyone has a Story!

The fundamentals of how we view, internalise, experience, and respond to the world are embedded in our earlier life experiences. We all have a history that speaks to the sense of self therefore, having access to your history is important. When children experience multiple moves within the care system, they move further away from the people they have shared life experiences with which results in a fragmentation of their personal history and makes it more difficult to develop a strong sense of self and identity. Furthermore, being denied access to these earlier experiences and understanding their impact on the present and the future makes it difficult to develop into a psychologically healthy adult.

Why do we do therapeutic life story work?

Life story work gives children who are in the care system or who have been adopted, access to their history and supports them in processing and making sense of their past experiences. It aims to provide a written interpretation of the child’s life journey from birth to the present. Whereas ‘traditional’ completion of life story work does not always include the child or the caregiver, therapeutic life story work invites the foster carer and the child to participate in the process along with the life story work practitioner. This allows for both to develop their knowledge of each other, thereby strengthening the connection between the two and allowing them to become attuned to each other.

What are the Benefits of conducting therapeutic life story work with our young people

Therapeutic life story work not only focuses on the who, what, when why and how of past experiences but also considers the impact, these experiences have on the child in the present and how it may manifest in complex behaviours and feelings. The model offers not only a way of knowing your past but also an opportunity to heal and reframe negative narratives and empower the child in creating a strong sense of self. It can be powerful in helping children to reflect on how they approach various difficulties in their lives and lead them on a path of resolution and healing.

Dan Hughes, a Clinical Psychologist, created Dyadic developmental psychotherapy (DDP) as a treatment for families with adopted or fostered childrenwho had experienced neglect and abuse in their birth families and suffered fromsignificant developmental trauma.

DDP is a therapeutic model which combines Psychotherapy & Parenting, focusingon the importance of the quality within the relationship between child/youngp erson & carer/parent with emphasis on safety and connection. There is so much to unpack in this model but below are some key topics to give a little flavour of what it’s all about!

The DDP model unpicks the difficulties children and young people present with because of developmental trauma. Developmentally traumatized children learn to survive and navigate their everyday life without safety, security or healthy connections. This is often done without the stability of a responsible adult due to growing up an environment which includes physical or sexual abuse, emotional harm or neglect. As a result, these children present with behaviours rooted in fear, shame, developmental delay and pain which relays in unhealthy ways such as self- harming, self-sabotaging, emotional outbursts, withdrawal/isolating, etc.

As dyadic means between 2 people, intersubjectivity is a key term in DDP based on reciprocity dynamics: “I impact you and you impact me”. With this in mind, the DDP model centres a great deal of its strategies and teachings around a concept called

PACE– Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity and Empathy. The DDP approach believes that this combination of affection, enables healing and creates psychological safety.

PLAYFUL – being playful creates an open and approachable atmosphere.

ACCEPTANCE – acknowledges and validates the child/young person’s internal experience and sense of self.

CURIOSITY – in the stance of wondering WHY? Or WHAT is driving the behaviours/feelings of the child, leads to a path of understanding. Dialogue and thought opens up to think more and find solutions than to react to the situation. Using phrases like “I’ve noticed that…” Or “I wonder why you…”

EMPATHY – creates capacity to imagine what the child/young person is feeling and is shared, letting the other know they are being understood and are not alone in their feelings. This can be demonstrated through letting them know how their story/behaviour/ feeling that they’ve shared has impacted you eg. “I can see how hurt you feel and hearing about this painful experience, makes me feel so sad to know you have gone through this. It must have been so difficult for you”.

Another little nugget that the DDP model highlights, is a concept of “Blocked Care”, addressing when it becomes challenging to continue giving care to a child/young person because of the lack of response that their giving when support/care/help is provided for them. The model acknowledges that this feeling of “wanting to give up” is a normal response but highlights that the child’s/young person’s lack of response to care given, comes from a place of the distorted ways in which they’ve learnt to relate, with the unconscious intention of controlling the others’ emotions via evoking/projecting feelings of anger, inadequacy or hopelessness. When Blocked Care is acknowledged as a normal response to the child/young person’s behaviour rather than a state of being or a sign to throw in the towel, it becomes a lot easier to address and recover from!

In short, the DDP model is very experiential and worth exploring when it comes to working through the trust process that takes place when building the relationship between a carer/parent and child/young person.

Here at Ascent Fostering, we train all our staff and carers in the DDP model. The PACE concept has become second nature to our foster carers who have been able to engage with their young people in a positive and constructive way.

Find out more about DDP

If you live in South London and want to learn more about Fostering, we’d love to hear from you. Either click on the link and we’ll call you back or call us on 0203 757 0070.