Hampshire County Council’s fostering Service

There are lots of reasons to foster with Hampshire County Council’s fostering service

The main reason is the children we care for. Each has their own story and reasons for being in need of a foster carer and each has need of a committed, caring, supportive adult to look after them during this next phase in their life  Of course, the package of support, training, fostering payments, allowances and fees are also important, as they enable the foster carers to look after the children in their care to the best of their abilities.

Decision Making

If a foster placement is identified as the best option for a child, Hampshire County Council’s Family Placement service will place the child with the best match foster family for the child’s needs.  We start this process with our own foster carers, and where possible and in the best interests of the child, make placements in Hampshire, and with foster carers who we have known and trained.

Familiarity can be important to children, and where it is safe for a child to be placed locally, we will try to do this. This means a child may be able to continue to go to school and see their friends, important elements of stability during what is an emotional time.

Matching carers and children together to get the best result is a skill, and familiarity is important to help us do this. Every foster care is supported by a supervising social worker to help make sure they are supported to look after children that are placed with them, and also to support carers to develop their skills so they offer the types of care they are most interetsed in and are best suited to.

Making a Difference

As a Hampshire carer, you will be at the heart of a busy service, actively making a difference to the lives of children. Hampshire foster carers are busy people whose services are used frequently so there are few gaps between any placements which the foster carers may choose to take. Hampshire carers are also offered access to a range of local services and opportunities to support the children they look ater.

Helping carers to look after a child

Foster carers are best placed to look after children when they have the right support in place to help them. That is why we support Hampshire foster carers with:

• Allowances for the care of the child plus special allowances for birthday’s, Christmas and holidays
• Skills fees for foster carers (depending on assessed experience)
• A thorough training pathway from Skills to Foster through to specialist options
• Your own social worker to offer you support, advice and encouragement
• Access to full 24/7/365 support when you have a child in placement
• Formal and informal support groups for foster carers and foster carers children
• An active foster carers association
• An annual Culture-All card, helping you get out and about and enjoy Hampshire with your fostering family with reduced price entry to key attractions and special seasonal offers
• Access or referrals to specialist services for the children in your care when they are needed including specialist support with health and education
• Stay in touch with the latest standards and developments in fostering, including the opportunity to engage with any consultations and feed into discussions about the future direction of the profession
• Flexible role, enabling you to work from home around your own families needs.
  • Read more about the Service in the Statement of Purpose  670kb
  • Read more about fostering with Hampshire County Council (Information Pack  963kb)