Your life

Assessment

Preparation Course

All enquirers who proceed to making a formal application to become a foster carer will be invited to attend a course entitled “Skills to Foster”. This is a 7 session course sometimes held over a 7 week period on set evenings or sometimes held on a couple of evenings and a couple of Saturdays or Sundays. The course provides an opportunity to hear about and discuss all aspects of fostering and to prepare all applicants for their role as carers. There is an expectation that all prospective carers attend this course.

Assessment

Following the training course each applicant is allocated a qualified social worker from the resourcing team to carry out an assessment. The social worker will visit the applicants regularly at home to explore with them many facets of their present and past lives. Applicants can also be asked to provide their own written contribution to the assessment. We hope that the assessment is something that we do in partnership with applicants and requires openness and honesty from both applicants and worker. While the process may feel intrusive many foster carers have stated that they also enjoyed the assessment process and made them consider more deeply whether fostering was right for them.

The law requires that many checks and references will also be sought. These checks will be carried out on everyone over the age of 16 within the household.

At the end of the assessment process a report will be produced called a Form F. Applicants are encouraged to provide contributions for inclusion in the assessment report and all written information will be shared with the applicants by the assessing social worker. The only exception to this would be third party information (e.g. references) where the provider of the information is not agreeable to the information being shared with the applicant.

Panel

All written material is then considered by Stirling Council’s Fostering Panel. Applicants and their assessing social worker are invited to attend the fostering panel where their application will be discussed. The fostering panel makes a recommendation and this recommendation then goes to the Agency Decision Maker, who is our Head of Service, for the final decision to be made. Applicants will be informed both verbally and in writing of the panel‘s recommendation and the Agency Decision Maker’s decision.

The training and assessment process takes on average 6 months from the point of application and the service makes it every possible effort to avoid delays.

Please complete and return this form to Team Leader, Fostering and Adoption, Drummond House, Wellgreen Place, Stirling FK8 2EG. A visit will be arranged to provide further information and discuss your interest.

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