Stepdown Programme

If you have experience of caring for and working with children or have fostered before, you might want to help children with more complex needs.

We appreciate that when caring for a child with very complex needs and/or disabilities, you will need an additional level of support. To aid you, we offer a range of training courses that will enhance your skills to support a child moving back with a foster family. This includes a 360-degree support network through our Stepdown Programme.

This might be the right role for you if you are interested in caring for an older child who currently lives in a residential setting. These young people have likely experienced a number of moves from one home to another, and they need stability and therapeutic care.

If you are interested in this role, a social worker will undertake a specific piece of work with you, which we refer to as our 'Therapeutic Parenting Mapping Tool'. This assessment is underpinned by research related to therapeutic parenting approaches and will enable the social worker to capture your skill set and determine whether this role is suitable for you. This enables you to share your skills related to therapeutic parenting approaches.

With an increase in the demands on your time and skills as a foster carer, we want to support you with the relevant financial package to reflect this higher demand. Your social worker will also be able to recommend the right financial support for you and the children and young people in your care.

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Financial support and allowances

You can foster if

Cathy and Simon pursued specific training to gain the skills and knowledge needed to carry out specialist therapeutic caring. This enables them to care for children of various ages who have needs that require higher levels of skill and experience.

They really enjoy having the ability to see the positive effect that their input has on the children they care for. They also feel really proud to have been able to progress to a point where they feel at the pinnacle of their role.

Because of their higher skill set, Cathy and Simon were supported by their supervising social worker who ensured that they received the right financial package.