Foster Care Training with FCA Scotland

Training for every stage of your fostering journey

At FCA Scotland, we have been supporting children and young people who’ve had difficult starts to life to reach the best possible outcomes for over 20 years. Our experience has helped us develop an ongoing training programme that teaches you how to foster therapeutically and prepares you for every stage of your fostering journey.

What is therapeutic foster care?

Many children and young people who need foster care have endured abuse, neglect or other difficult circumstances.

These experiences have a lasting impact on their lives, affecting everything from their emotions and behaviour to their mental health and relationships. Even if they’ve moved into care for another reason, such as their parent or guardian being temporarily unwell, the upheaval and change can still have a profound effect on their well-being.

To help these children move forward and heal from their trauma, they need foster carers who know how to:

Recognise a child’s trauma responses and understand how their experiences impact them.
Look beyond a child’s behaviour to recognise what’s really going on for them.
Carefully respond to a child’s thoughts and feelings.
Promote positive behaviour by adjusting their approach to each child’s specific needs.
Build and nurture a relationship with their foster child that helps them feel safe, respected, and understood.
Teach children how to trust others again.
Advocate for a child’s specific needs.
Collaborate with other fostering professionals, such as social workers, education co-ordinators, therapists and more, to support a child’s whole well-being.
Provide a stable home environment where children feel safe to be themselves, have a chance to succeed at school, and are given opportunities to explore their interests.

Our training programme will support you in developing all the above skills, helping you to make a real difference in the lives of children and young people.

Our foster carer training programme

At FCA Scotland, you receive training throughout your fostering journey. Not only does this support your professional development, but it also ensures you can continue to meet your foster child’s changing needs as they grow.

Here’s a breakdown of our training programme, so you know what to expect when you begin your fostering career with us.

Prepare to Foster

Completed during your assessment, our prepare to foster training is a 2-to-3-day course that explores:

The next steps to becoming an approved foster carer with FCA Scotland.
What it’s really like to be a child or young person living in foster care.
The knowledge and skills you need to prepare you for fostering, from the role of a foster carer and caring for children with trauma to attachment and safer caring, we’ll help you feel confident and ready to welcome a child into your home.

Mandatory training

Once you’re approved to foster, you’ll start our mandatory training. Covering all the ‘essentials’ that every foster carer needs to know for looking after children and young people, this takes place at the beginning of your career, and carries on throughout with regular refreshers along the way. Topics covered include:

Health and safety
Equality and diversity
Identity and self-esteem
Child protection
Attachment and child development
Teamwork
First aid
Protecting children & safeguarding foster carers
Managing difficult behaviour
Understanding self-harm

As part of your development, you’ll also have the opportunity to take part in weekly group training sessions run by our dedicated FCA Scotland therapist.

Complementary training

We actively encourage and support our foster carers to broaden their skills and knowledge through our comprehensive training programme.

Our courses are designed to develop your all-round fostering skills, help you better support children in your care, and grow in your role so you can provide specialist care to children with more complex needs.

From complex trauma and sexually harmful behaviour to understanding Autism and FASD, our library of training courses is updated regularly and will help your continuous professional development.

All of the topics covered are pieces in the jigsaw of being better foster carers, and you’re welcome to attend as many as you like. They’ll help you develop your practice, offering a greater depth of knowledge, theory, and practical application.

Online learning

As well as training and workshops, we offer a number of programmes through ‘Learnative’, our exclusive online portal, which enhances your learning and gives you more control over how and when you learn.

This combination of face-to-face and online training means we’re able to offer you a flexible and continuous programme of learning and development opportunities that meet your needs and fit around any other commitments you may have.

Speak to our team

Whether you’re ready to start your journey or just want to chat to an expert, we’re here to talk.

Enquiry Form

You are required to have a spare bedroom that’s always available to a foster child. The spare room cannot be shared, and must be big enough to fit a single bed, a wardrobe and a chest of drawers.

Do you have a spare room?*

To be approved as a foster carer in the UK, you must be a British citizen or have the legal right to remain in the UK without restrictions that would prevent fostering.

Which of the following applies to you?*

How can we help you with your enquiry?*

The following questions are intended to help us understand your experience with children. Please note that prior experience is not required to become a foster carer, as full training will be provided.

Have you had children of your own?*

Do you have professional experience of working with children?*

Have you had any prior experience of fostering, such as being a foster parent or growing up in a fostering family?*

Have you ever adopted a child?*

Are you happy to receive regular fostering news from us?*

Yes

No

First Name*

Last Name*

Phone Number*

Email Address*

Postcode*

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