Conference Poster: Foster Care Connect (Creating Nurturing Relationships)

The text of this poster reads:

Discovery

In 2021, Foster Care Connect submitted a funding bid to The Promise to support the launch of an enhanced way of providing support to children and young people and their fostering families.

We liked the ideas presented by the Mockingbird Programme, a model that nurtures the relationships between children, young people and fostering families, supporting them to build a resilient and caring community.

As a small independent fostering agency, we knew we didn’t have the resource to be part of the Mockingbird Programme, so we decided to create our own version, thanks to funding from The Promise.

Journey

Navigating our way through the other side of the pandemic, we provided opportunities for foster carers to come together and build important relationships as a priority. These included:

• Lunch time meet ups to provide important support and guidance to each other.
• A Digital Fostering Families programme which provided the perfect opportunity for fostering families to meet in an online environment that felt safe and was not overwhelming.

Our next steps were to bring children and young people together at different events. These included:

• Trips to Laser Tag with a mixed age range
• Days out at East Links Family Park with different groups
• Visits to the Escape Rooms and rib rides for our young people.

Change

The amazing thing is that these events have continued beyond the project. One group of young people have completed all Escape rooms in the local area and have arranged to meet up for meals out and trips to other things, alongside meeting up online for gaming.

Our project ended with a ‘Magic in the Woodlands’ experience at Newbattle Abbey College with the Forest andOutdoor Learning team, with whole fostering families, including an age range of one to sixty something, coming together to build dens, whittle wood, relax in hammocks and explore. It was a truly relational day out and great to see the connections that had been made being built on as we enjoyed the outdoors.

Quote

Reflecting on the experience of our own version of creating nurturing relationships for everyone at Foster Care Connect, one foster carer said:

Having activities that our young person could connect with children his age enabled him to just be himself without having to seem different. There was a connection/understanding that I observed that was initiated because of these sessions and doing something that would help him feel he had connections/friends beyond those he had at school.

These connections have developed beyond organised activities as they stay in touch through social media – he even took the bus up to Edinburgh to visit the cinema with one of the group. It was important to have the initial activities facilitated and supervised by members of staff so they could support and guide these relationships too.