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Why foster with Cambridgeshire County Council?

When you foster with Cambridgeshire County Council, you will be joining a professional, nurturing, and child centred team who make sure you can access all the best local training and local support networks that we provide in your area.

What is fostering?

When you foster, you provide care for a local child or young person in your family home during periods when they cannot live with their own family. This can be for a variety of reasons, but whatever their situation, they need you to provide them with love, stability, and a safe home environment in which they can thrive.

Email us at fostering@cambridgeshire.gov.uk

Call us on 0800 052 0078

Text FOSTERING to 60777

Which children need foster care

We urgently need to hear from people who can provide loving foster homes for:

  • Children aged 11 and above
  • Brothers and sisters
  • Children with complex needs and disabilities
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What do foster carers do

Our children and young people are at the heart of everything that we do, and this means that all decisions are made in the best interest of the child. As a foster carer, your role is to offer a safe, respectful, and caring home environment so that local children can thrive as part of a family. We will help you to support a child or young person's health, education and development by encouraging you to:

  • Attend ongoing training, delivered to you locally, to develop your fostering skills
  • Keep records up to date about your foster child’s progress
  • Attend local fostering support groups to share experiences and advice with other foster carers in your area
  • Help your foster child develop their self-esteem and confidence

Why foster with your Local Authority

When you’re first considering becoming a foster carer, we know you have a choice between fostering for your Local Authority and fostering for an Independent Fostering Agency (IFA). We want to show you why it is better for you and the children and young people you care for when you choose us.

Cambridgeshire County Council is one of the largest employers of local people and represents the communities we serve. When you foster with us, you will have the support of the council and our partner agencies behind you.

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The training we attended was really comprehensive and helps you to manage lots of situations that may arise – we also got a chance to talk it through with others in the group.

- Cambridgeshire foster carer. 

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Here are some of the main reasons why choosing the Cambridgeshire Fostering Service will lead to a better fostering experience for both you and the child or young person you welcome into your home:

  • We are a not-for-profit organisation, unlike IFAs, meaning we invest all our money into our children, young people, and foster carers
  • We help young people to stay close to their family, friends, and school
  • You will be the first to hear about local children and young people who need a home and a loving family
  • The Local Authority is responsible for making decisions about what a child or young person in care can do, from school trips to holidays. We’re part of the Local Authority, so we can communicate with the relevant teams directly to help you get these decisions made more quickly
  • We will allocate you an experienced foster carer currently working for our service as a mentor
  • We are competitive in pay against IFAs alongside the additional tax savings available to you as a foster carer
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Read more about our fostering community, our training team, and the memberships and benefits we offer below.

Whenever a child or young person cannot live with their birth family, we – your Local Authority – are responsible for ensuring that the child or young person receives the care they need. We will work closely with their Social Worker, to find a family that can best meet their needs.

When you foster with us, you become part of our community who all work together to make sure that the best decisions are made for the children and young people in your care at various key stages of their lives. This locally based team is made up of you, your Supervising Social Worker, your child, or young person’s Social Worker, supporting council staff and staff from health and education, who each play a vital role in shaping your foster child or young person’s future.

Our local Supervising Social Workers embody the council’s values and are committed to support and supervision to help improve and enhance your fostering skills. You’ll be able to contact your Supervising Social Worker whenever you need to, and they will in turn be able to communicate directly with the children and young people’s Social Workers.

As an approved Foster Carer, you will receive an invitation to attend your local Foster Carer Support Group. All of our local support groups are well attended by carers, and offer an excellent opportunity to provide peer support, share additional learning, and talk with fellow carers who understand your fostering journey.

You can also expand your role within your local community as you gain knowledge and experience. You can join our Mentoring Scheme and offer support and advice to new Foster Carers, and you can join our Foster Carer Recruitment Ambassadors who promote our service and the importance of foster care.

We will provide you with a wide range of bespoke training opportunities to support and develop you as a Foster Carer, from your pre-approval period to your first year of fostering and beyond. We deliver regular training sessions locally from familiar venues within your community, ensuring you can access every session easily.

Our fabulous team of experienced Social Workers and trainers will use their diverse range of skills and knowledge to provide you with engaging and thought-provoking training so that you can get the best out of our learning programmes. Because we design and deliver training ourselves, we can adapt our courses to meet our carers’ specific requirements. Additionally, we commission training from experts in the field, enabling us to provide you with a broad range of training topics to give you a full knowledge of fostering.

As a member of our local fostering community, you will receive free membership to Fostertalk. This will grant you access to a range of services, benefits, and information so that we can support you as a local Foster Carer.

Here are just a few of the fantastic benefits that you will be able to access:

  • Legal protection insurance
  • A legal helpline for expert advice
  • Fostering helpline for independent advice on all aspects of fostering
  • 24/7 confidential stress counselling service
  • A wealth of online resources, publications, and training, providing up to date and practical information that will help you to provide the best care
  • A Max Card, which gives you discounts on family days out, holidays, home insurance, and much more
  • An online community for Foster Carers to connect and share advice, support, and personal experiences

As a Local Authority, we can also provide you with our own benefits. Our Employee Assistance Support will cover you for:

  • Counselling
  • Legal support
  • Bereavement assistance
  • Medical information

You will also have direct access to our Virtual Schools for Children in Care, who provide specialist education support, advice and guidance, and tailored Personal Education Plans for the child or young person you are caring for.

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