Providing The Best Care For Children, Young People & Foster Parents
- What is respite care?
- How can respite foster care benefit both children and young people and their foster families?
- How can Changing Futures Fostering help? A look at the care we offer and opportunities to become a respite foster carer…
What Is Respite Care?
Respite foster care involves short breaks or sometimes emergency placements that place children or young people in care into a different foster family or placement for a short period of time. Here at Changing Futures you would be called Short Break Foster Parents. Depending on their type of foster placement and where they currently spend most of their time, respite care may involve placing them with a different foster family or other family members. This arrangement is designed to offer short breaks for foster parents and the children and young people in their care. But why is this beneficial?
How Can Changing Futures Fostering Help? A Look At The Care We Offer And Opportunities To Become A Respite Foster Carer…
Well, the benefits are endless! Respite foster care plays a vital role in maintaining strong relationships between foster families. We’re all human, and sometimes stress levels rise, unexpected events occur, or tensions are high. Fostering certainly has its ups and downs, much like any parent-child relationship, which is why respite care provides a calm, safe and fun environment for both parties to relax, rejuvenate and recharge. This helps to keep relationships happy and healthy by providing full-time foster carers and foster children with some space and breathing room. Temporary care in the form of short break foster care is particularly useful for placements that involve special educational needs, as these can often come with more complex situations and challenges. This way, full-time carers can benefit from a break whilst short break carers take over for a little while. It also allows children and young people in long-term placements the opportunity to expand their support network and have another familiar face whom they trust and see on a regular basis, or during school holidays. This means that a respite carer or respite family is usually assigned to a young person or child to offer a sense of stability and security and to develop long-term relationships. Respite fostering also provides the opportunity for prospective foster parents who don’t have the facilities or time for a permanent placement to test the water and fulfil their desire to foster.
Respite Care For Foster Families – How Can Changing Futures Fostering Help?
Not only do we offer and promote respite care to support our foster families, but we also provide the opportunity for individuals to become respite foster carers. The process is fairly similar to applying to be any sort of long-term foster carer, with requirements such as a spare bedroom and crucial safety checks crossing over. Please contact our team for more information on how you can become a respite foster carer. Fostering is full of new experiences, and as mentioned, respite care is a useful tool for a short-term foster carer to work alongside full-time foster parents and birth parents whether this is to test the waters and evaluate whether long-term placements are for them, or just to give full time foster carers a break when things get a bit overwhelming!
At Changing Futures Fostering, we’re all about providing our foster parents with the support they need to really make a difference in a vulnerable child’s life. If you need any more information on the respite care for foster families that we offer or about the fostering process in general, please click here to contact us. Or, please feel free to email us at admin@changingfuturesne.co.uk or give us a call on 01429 363 127 to speak to our brilliant fostering team!