Foster Care

Permanence is about providing the child with a sense of security, continuity commitment and identity …. a secure stable and loving family to support them through childhood and beyond.’ (DCSF 2010). The right of every child to belong to a family is underpinned by the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Children Act 1989 states wherever possible a child should be brought up within their own family, the ‘Ideal family’ being birth parents or members of their extended family, the permanency planning process will explore all the options thoroughly.

The aim of this Life Story Work Training course is to give practitioners and Foster Carers an awareness of what is meant by Life Story Work and the importance of it in the child’s journey. It explores the impact of traumatic experiences on memory and helps Carers to find ways to help the child to collect present memories to shift the balance. It will support practitioners to manage the difficult conversations that Life Story Work sometimes creates for children and young people and explore their own emotions and feeling around having these discussions. Finally it will demonstrate to practitioners the important role they have to play along with other professionals and the child in helping them to fit together the missing jigsaw pieces in the Cared for Child’s Life Story

Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD), formerly Foetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) is the umbrella term used to describe the leading cause of preventable birth defects and is the commonest known cause of cognitive impairment in children, in the world. 6,000 babies are born each year in the UK with FASD – and many are undiagnosed. If you work with children, adolescents or vulnerable adults you may be supporting someone with an FASD. It is a spectrum disorder caused when a pregnant women consumes alcohol, Improvements in screening, identification, and treatment of children with Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASDs) can be enhanced through systematic efforts to educate medical and allied health students and practitioners about these disorders. Such efforts will contribute toward the goal of better identification, diagnosis, and referral for treatment for individuals with prenatal alcohol exposure.

This course will enable workers who are engaged in work with children and families to develop effective ways and build confidence in working with difficult behaviour, in order to recognise potential impacts on professional dynamics and multi-agency child protection work when professionals are faced with working with families who are hostile and evasive.

Helping a child make sense of his or her past is an important part of a practitioner’s role in working with children and young people. Being able to do this sensitively and effectively will help the child cope with current uncertainties, develop a clearer sense of identity and contribute to plans for their future. This course has been developed with reference to the latest research, legislation, standards and good practice and the delivery of knowledge and skills is designed to take account of a wide range of different learning styles.

There are specific requirements relating to support for care leavers. The ultimate aim of leaving care services is to support care leavers so that they can live successful independent lives. Each care leaver will reach that point at a different age and there should be no assumption that the duty means that all care leavers will require statutory support until the age of 25. Young people are not adults and are also transitioning through developmental stages which impact on their decision-making reasoning, risk taking choices and ability to learn and use life skill. As part of this Transitions (Leaving Care) Training course we will look at brain development in adolescence and how to support young people through a range of transition situations

The aim of this course is to offer insight into positive parenting and child development

This one day course aims to introduce team support workers to best practice in creating effective plans. Lessons from research and guidance from current law and policy will be used to enable participants to explore the link between assessment and planning, the principles of SMART and ExACT plans, and the enhance their understanding of creative outcome focused planning.

This interactive one-day course will enable delegates to develop their knowledge and confidence in working with resistant parents and carers to improve the welfare and outcomes for children and young people. This course will develop skills in identifying disguised compliance, why families are resistant, how to identify and evidence this in assessments and understand what they can do to move things forward.