Foster Carers' Charter for Coventry

Coventry City Council’s fostering service recognise that there are a number of requirements to make a successful working relationship between our foster carers and the fostering service in order to deliver outstanding fostering environments that will raise the outcomes for children and young people in Coventry.

Working in partnership - how will we achieve this?

• Value your skills and expertise as a professional carer
• Respect your confidentiality and your own family values
• Recognise that you are the people who know the children best and will understand their holistic needs
• Acknowledge and celebrate that foster carers make big differences to children and young people’s lives
• Recognise what you as an individual can offer to our children and young people in terms of diversity, uniqueness and difference
• Ensure your voice is heard, valued and respected as part of any planning process for the children in your care
• Ensure that the service that we and you provide continues to meet regulatory requirements by adhering to the National Minimum Standards
• Provide you with the right help, advice and support, at the right time
• Ensure that the needs of your family and your birth children are considered and that any fostering arrangement works for you as a whole
• Offer you an ‘out of hours’ service to include support, advice and guidance
• Provide you with independent advice and support should you require this
• Ensure that any complaints are dealt with in an efficient and timely way
• Support ongoing involvements with previous foster carers if this is in the best interest of the children
• Provide you with a range of training, support service and inclusive development days that help you better understand and manage the varied needs of children and young people that need to be looked after

To share information with our foster carers - how will we achieve this?

• Give foster carers all the relevant information that we have in order to support them to care safely and appropriately for a child or children in their home
• Provide foster carers with contact details for any appropriate family, friends or professionals involved with the children in your care, including staff mobile phone numbers
• Ensure that foster carers have the necessary legal documentation for children in your care
• Provide foster carers with the relevant policies, procedures, the National Minimum Standards and Foster Carers handbook
• Consult on a regular basis with foster carers regarding any changes in relation to policies and procedures or practice issues within the fostering service and any changes made
• Keep in touch with foster carers via a monthly Newsletter to inform them of relevant events, support services, share information on changes within the service 
• Provide a link/advocate or support to foster carers who are attending meetings in relation to the children in their care so their voice can be heard
• To ensure that foster carers are invited to and are involved in all meetings related to the children in their care 
• Consult with foster carers before changing terms and conditions
• Involve new and established carers in the delivery of the initial training for prospective foster carers and in the interview processes for staff members to ensure we continue to meet the needs of the service and of our looked after community.

To make decisions in a timely manner regarding our children and families - how will we achieve this?

• Involve you in decisions about children and young people coming to live with you and ensure that foster carers are empowered to use delegated authority where appropriate to do so, to make day to day decisions regarding children in their care
• You will be invited to attend key meetings where you will be asked to contribute your views to any decisions which impact on the child or young person in your care, for example looked after children reviews and PEP meetings

Offer high support to our fostering families - how will we achieve this?

• Value all of the members of our fostering families
• Provide a named supervising social worker who will visit foster carers frequently and provide outstanding supervision and support to all foster carers and their families. Supervising social workers will be an advocate for fostering families
• Respond in a timely manner for additional request for support.
• Hold support groups across the service, foster carers and invite their families.
• Have access to the duty social worker if the supervising social worker is unavailable and out of hours
• Provide foster carers with information about social work cover for longer periods of absence within 3 weeks
• Organise social activities across the city
• Provide open and honest feedback
• Ensure fees and allowances are fair, consistent and communicated clearly. Ensure these are paid in a timely way
• Provide equipment when needed
• Provide additional support when placements are under strain.
• Provide foster carers with access to a fostering worker at all times even when the offices are closed through the ‘on call’ service.

Provide the best learning and developmental opportunities - how will we achieve this?

• Run Skills to Foster training frequently throughout the year
• Provide the right support to complete the training support and development induction standards as foster carers
• Ensure fostering households have individual training plans specific to their training and development needs
• Provide a flexible and diverse training programme which will enable foster carers to be outstanding foster carers
• Provide opportunities to develop your skills and expertise within the fostering service
• Run a progression scheme to enable carers to enhance their income according to their expertise and skills

We will treat our fostering families fairly and with respect - how will we achieve this?

• Ensure open and transparent ways of working
• Include foster carers in professional discussions and listen to views and expertise when making Care Plans for children and young people
• Ensure that complaints are handled sensitively and in a timely manner
• Facilitate regular communication between foster carers, councillors and senior managers
• Consult foster carers regarding matters that affect them and children and young people in Coventry

The fostering service would like to thank our foster carers and CFCA in Coventry for the outstanding work you do with children and young people.