Parent & Child Fostering

We believe that, wherever possible, children and young people deserve every opportunity to stay with their birth family. For many different reasons, parents sometimes need assistance and support to increase the chances of this being a success.

As a Parent and Child Foster Parent, your home will provide a safe and secure environment in which a new parent can feel secure and motivated to work towards a positive outcome. We provide tailored parent and child placements, sometime referred to as a mother and baby placement although fathers are now more often included where appropriate, to give personalised support to the parents and their children, to help maintain and improve the quality of their family life and the future prospects of the child/children.

With the right type of help we believe that good parenting skills can be learnt, even when the parent themselves may not have experienced a happy and loving childhood. We can provide children and young people with a real chance to have the quality of family life they deserve.

If you have been considering fostering as a career, or if you are already fostering successfully, it is probably due to you having the qualities and personality that makes for a really good parent; whether or not you have had children of your own. Good Foster Parents have exceptional parenting skills, so this makes them the ideal and valuable lifeline for young parents whose ability to parent their own baby or child well is compromised for one reason or another.

A safe, secure and understanding home where a mother or father can learn parenting skills from experts can make the difference between them being able to raise their child themselves, or the child being taken into care. At Flourish Fostering we work to a therapeutic care model and provide foster families, and the new families they care for, with everything they need to achieve the best outcomes possible.

The parent is supported by the Foster Parent to understand their own needs and the needs of their baby. Parents will stay in the foster home with their child or baby until the assessment by the local authority (along with the Foster Parent’s and Flourish Social Worker’s and Therapist’s contributions) is completed.

Usually, this is around 12 weeks but can be extended, particularly if there are safeguarding concerns, or they can be concluded more quickly. Sometimes a decision may be made that the child’s best interests are not to remain with their parent, but to be adopted, in which case the parent(s) would move out of the foster home, and the Foster Parent would need to support and prepare the baby through this adoption process.

As a Parent and Child Foster Parent, you will be specifically trained to facilitate this type of assessment where Flourish Fostering contributes and work with the local authority. You will have regular reviews on the parent and child’s relationship and development.

The mother or father can be any age. However, if they are aged under 18 years, they may be a fostered child themselves. If the outcome is positive the Foster Parent would support them onto their next home, this could be moving in with family, independent living or supported living, and there is sometimes a possibility for the Foster Parent to provide some outreach work to assist this big transition.