What should I discuss with my fostering support worker?

Your fostering support worker is a useful person to speak to about decisions, changing circumstances and anything affecting your ability to provide consistent care. The most helpful discussions are specific and evidence-based: explain what has happened, how it has affected the household, what you have tried and what you think may be needed next.

• Your understanding of the foster carer role: Discuss whether your expectations match the responsibilities involved, including working with the child’s social care network, contributing to plans and maintaining appropriate professional boundaries. This is also a good opportunity to clarify which decisions you can make yourself and which require agreement from the child’s social worker or another professional.
• Placement matching and planning: Before a placement begins, ask about the information available about the child, the reasons for the placement, known routines, relationships and likely changes to family life. Discuss whether the proposed arrangement is suitable for your household, including the needs of other children and any limits you need to set. A support worker can help you identify questions to raise before agreeing to a placement.
• The child’s identity and individual needs: Talk about how you can support the child’s cultural, racial, religious, linguistic and personal identity in everyday life. You can also discuss ways to preserve important relationships, routines and interests while helping the child feel included in your household.
• Education and development: Share observations about attendance, engagement with learning, communication with school and any barriers affecting progress. Your support worker can help you consider what information should be passed to the relevant professionals and how your role fits with the child’s education plan.
• Records and communication: Ask what information you should record, how records should be written and who should receive particular updates. Good records should separate factual observations from assumptions or opinions. Take examples to supervision rather than relying on general descriptions, particularly where a pattern has developed over time.
• Working with professionals: Discuss how communication is going with the child’s social worker, school, health professionals and birth family, where relevant. If messages are unclear, responsibilities overlap or agreed actions have not been followed up, your support worker can help you establish who needs to do what and by when.
• Changes in your household: Tell your support worker about changes that could affect fostering, such as a new relationship, a change in the people living at home, illness, bereavement, a move or a significant change in work or caring responsibilities. Raising these matters early allows the impact on the placement to be considered properly.
• The wider household: Discuss how fostering is affecting birth children, partners, relatives or other people who live in or regularly visit your home. Their views can reveal pressures that may not be obvious during formal supervision, and the support worker can help you consider age-appropriate ways to involve them while protecting everyone’s privacy.
• Your decisions and boundaries: If you are uncertain about family contact, visitors, photographs, social media, overnight arrangements, personal possessions or household rules, ask for guidance before making a decision. Clear boundaries help prevent misunderstandings and give the child a predictable framework.
• Feedback and disagreement: You can discuss what is working well as well as what you find unhelpful. If you believe a decision is not right for the child or your household, explain your reasons and ask for the concern to be recorded and reviewed through the appropriate process. Your support worker should be able to explain the next step if an issue cannot be resolved informally.

Before a meeting, make a short note of key events, dates, questions and decisions you need to revisit. Bring relevant documents where appropriate and identify the outcome you want from the conversation, such as clarification, a referral, an updated plan or a further discussion with another professional. At the end, check that you understand the agreed actions, who is responsible for them and when they should be reviewed.

You do not need to wait for a scheduled supervision meeting to raise an important change or uncertainty. Keeping communication open gives your fostering support worker a clearer understanding of your circumstances and helps ensure that decisions about the placement are based on current, accurate information.