Whether you’re recently approved as a foster carer, or have years of experience, it can be both exciting and daunting to welcome someone new into your home. Even if lots has been done to prepare everyone for living together, you may be feeling nervous, and it’s not unusual for children to feel overwhelmed and bewildered when they first move in. As a foster carer, your role is to welcome your new arrival, and provide a safe, secure and loving home for them to thrive in.
Planning and preparing for a child for arrive
Ideally, foster carers should be involved in planning for a child’s arrival and care.
This should involve:
- Being given all of the relevant information about the child, including their specific needs and anything else to help you prepare.
- An introduction between the foster family and the child, so that everyone can meet each other.
- Plenty of opportunity to ask questions.
Having as much information as possible, and the chance to ask questions, will help you feel more prepared to welcome a child into your home.
The moving-in meeting
At the point when a child is moving in, a meeting should be held at the foster home, including everyone involved in the child’s care
- This meeting is known as a ‘placement planning meeting’, and it’s to discuss important aspects of the child's needs and ‘care plan’ – how they will be looked after and kept safe.
- The foster carer, the child's social worker, the fostering supervising social worker, the child (depending on their age), and, in some circumstances, the child's birth parents should all be at this meeting.
- Bringing everyone together to plan for the future can help to establish good relationships from the start.
It’s important that everyone has clear expectations about their role and responsibilities. For example, it’s important for foster carers to understand the everyday decisions they can make about the child in their care this is sometimes called ‘delegated authority’.
This may include decisions around the child’s health, education and when they will be having family time with their parents.
Children also need to feel safe and to know that no one is allowed to hurt them. Discussing the child’s care plan, including safer caring will help foster carers to let everyone know the rules and expectations of living together.
Are you feeling nervous about your new arrival? Angela and Simon, two experienced foster carers, share their top tips for welcoming a new child into your home and what to do while you’re waiting for a child to arrive.