Foster Parent and Child Placements

Foster Parent and Child Placements

Foster carers can provide support and guidance to the foster parents and help them develop parenting skills to address the problems they have or may have experienced in the past. Foster carers are often asked to contribute to observational reports and provide information about the level of care the young parent is giving to their child. Working with a parent & a child can be very rewarding for foster carers given the different challenges and many positives for both the parent and child.

Foster Parent and Child placements are provided to parents and their children to give them the best opportunity of staying together in care. Most commonly, placements are for mother and their baby but it can also be for the father and also older children.

Parent & Child placements are often an alternative to residential care and the social worker with a Local Authority may consider a parent & child placement as a preferred outcome for several reasons:

• The parent has had a child removed in the past due to abuse or neglect
• Parent’s skills in parenting need to be assessed
• The parent needs support and training to develop parenting skills
• There are concerns about the self-care of a parent
• Potential misuse of drugs and/or alcohol by a parent