January is always a time for thinking about the future whether that’s personal or professional so it will come as no surprise that we are doing this at Changing Futures Fostering. I think a good starting point is looking at what we have achieved so far and my goodness, it’s a lot.
Bringing Changing Futures Fostering to life during a pandemic has been challenging but we did it and now we have our Ofsted registration, we are actively recruiting, and this was always the hope for 2020.
So, what about 2021, well building on our fantastic training and support offer, it’s about supporting the foster parents we have in assessment & training and recruiting more foster parents to support looked after children in Durham and the Tees Valley.
We are receiving excellent feedback from our foster parents about the training they are receiving and that we are delivering what we say we will, which is reassuring.
The training you get at Changing Futures Fostering is also very therapeutic to you and your own family. It helps you understand each others behaviour, behaviours that you have lived with forever. It’s been an added bonus for us as we have got so much out of that! I’m excited to see where all this takes us.” Clare, Foster Parent
Going forward we will continue to ensure we are looking for the right people and making sure that we keep children and young people at the heart of all we do is our ultimate goal.
We meet with young people, that have been in the care system, regularly and their support and feedback is vital to us. Their voice must be heard. Along with the fantastic foster parents, who support us due to their expertise. We are excited about the future, building a fostering agency that is steeped in good values and practice.
This week we’ve been inducting our fostering panel and we are delighted with how they are progressing in their knowledge and passion for fostering. It’s been a busy time.
We want to thank everyone that have been involved in supporting Changing Futures Fostering to date and we would welcome talking to anyone who is interested in becoming a foster parent or who has experience that they would like to share.
This is just the start for us, and we may have spent 2020 writing the first chapter of our book but the rest is due to be written.