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Training for kinship carers

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The Learning and Development Offer for kinship carers is provided by the Fostering Training Team. The team offer a range of courses. They are delivered both online via Microsoft Teams and in-person at various locations across Cambridgeshire. There are also e-learning options available that you can complete at your own pace.

If you need help accessing any training or have a specific learning need that isn't covered, please get in touch with the team at fostering.training@cambridgeshire.gov.uk.

Becoming a kinship carer

As part of the assessment and approval process, we offer all applicants three training courses.

This two-hour online course will introduce you to some important aspects of connected persons care including:

  • the nature and impact of the various Court Orders and care arrangements
  • the assessment process
  • the team around the child
  • the special guardianship support plan
  • advice on how to manage important factors, such as the child’s contact with their parents and other people important to them; education arrangements; and getting long term support.

Cambridgeshire County Council has developed a therapeutic parenting course for kinship carers, which helps to explore therapeutic parenting from a trauma informed perspective. This course will run four times a year and is considered part of essential learning for all carers and people working with children.

Kinship care makes an incredible difference to children’s lives. However, kinship carers are often significantly impacted financially, socially and research shows they experience higher levels of stress than the wider population. This training course is an honest look at kinship care and the importance of looking after yourself and getting support in a timely way.

Face-to-face courses that run throughout the year are as follows:

  • Attachment
  • Child criminal exploitation and missing from care
  • Compassion focussed foster care (new)
  • Co-regulating the dysregulated child (new)
  • Domestic abuse and the impact on children
  • DDP/PACE (‘Dyadic Development Psychotherapy, Parenting and Practice Model’ and ‘Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity and Empathy’) informed workshop: how food related issues manifest within developmental trauma (new)
  • Life story
  • Menopause awareness
  • Neglect
  • Play and Theraplay
  • Preparing for independence
  • Recovery through Relationships
  • Safer caring
  • Sensory integration training and how 'Buss Ideas' can help children in care
  • Supporting the grieving brain: loss and separation for children and the neurobiology of grief (new)
  • Understanding intra-familial child sexual abuse training
  • Vicarious trauma Online training courses

Training from the Kinship care charity

As part of the new Kinship Peer Support Service supported by the Department for Education, the Kinship care charity has launched a new free online workshop series for kinship carers. ​

​Workshops can be booked online and any kinship carer in England can access them by registering in advance on the Kinship website.​

  • An introduction to kinship care ​
  • What financial help am I entitled to as a kinship carer? ​
  • How to improve challenging behaviour​
  • Better communication and the teenage years ​
  • Preparing for sensitive conversations with kinship children​
  • Understanding trauma and attachment​
  • Overview of the EHCP (Education, Health and Care Plan) and SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) process​
  • Self-care for kinship carers​

If you are a kinship carer and would like to receive an up to date training brochure please write to fostering.training@cambridgeshire.gov.uk.