Who delivers pre-service foster care training?

Pre-service foster care training is delivered by Become A Foster Family’s fostering service, with sessions led by members of the team who understand fostering, safeguarding and the assessment process. The facilitators’ role is to explain what fostering involves in practice and help you consider how the responsibilities would fit your household.

Training is usually coordinated by the fostering team rather than delivered as a general childcare course. The content is linked to the expectations placed on foster carers, including working with professionals, sharing information appropriately, responding to children’s behaviour and maintaining safe boundaries. This means the discussion can focus on the decisions and situations foster carers may face, not only on theory.

Different parts of the programme may be delivered by staff with relevant professional knowledge or experience. Depending on the subject, this can include people involved in fostering assessment, safeguarding, social work practice or carer support. Where more than one team member contributes, each person brings a different perspective while working from the same fostering-service requirements.

The trainer is not there simply to present information. Sessions normally include discussion, questions, activities and opportunities to examine realistic examples. You may be asked to think about:

• how your household would respond to a child who has experienced loss, trauma or disrupted care;
• how you would work with the child’s social worker, birth family, school and other professionals;
• how your existing routines, relationships and support network could affect fostering;
• how to recognise safeguarding concerns and follow the correct reporting arrangements; and
• how fostering could affect other children and adults in your household.

The people delivering the training are separate from the children and young people who may later be placed with you. Their purpose is to prepare and inform prospective carers, answer questions and identify areas that may need further discussion during assessment. Completing the course does not by itself mean that you are approved; training forms part of the wider preparation and assessment process.

You should therefore treat the trainers as a source of practical guidance, not as people who expect you to arrive with all the answers. It is appropriate to ask about subjects that are unclear, explain any concerns about your circumstances and request clarification where the training raises a question about fostering in your household. Your participation and the issues discussed can then inform conversations with the wider fostering team as you decide whether to proceed.