Projects

Who am I & What do I do?
BAAF’s Children’s Workforce Development Council Project

Although debate about the future of foster care continues, we very rarely hear the voice and views of carers themselves. In November 2006 BAAF was awarded a Children’s Workforce Development Council (CWDC) grant for a project which set out to explore how foster carers see their role, and what helps them to do it well.

The project lead and development

Andrea Warman, BAAF’s Foster Care Development Consultant, led this project. She worked with Sara Haggerty and Karen Lubbock from Owl Graphics, a communications and design company. Together they spent time with two foster carers and their families, hearing about their motivation to foster, their training, what kind of support they receive and what keeps them going. Sara took photographs which showed everyday life in the households, and recorded what they said was important for them. Some of their words and pictures were then used to produce display boards for CWDC presentations.

The Foster Carers involvement

The two carers who participated in this project were; Susie, a carer in the independent sector who lives in Chippenham, Wiltshire and Rosamond, a local authority foster carer in London. These two women invited other carers into their homes and the words and images produced during the project stimulated more discussion about being a foster carer.

The findings

These group discussions led other carers to contribute their own comments and stories to the project, including some very moving poetry describing one woman’s experiences as a foster carer over a number of years.

Material from the project has been used to produce display boards which explore in words and images what it means to be a foster carer. Two of the boards are shown on this page. Rosamond and Susie presented with Andrea and Sara at a CWDC Regional event in March 2007, and the team was selected to represent London at the CWDC National celebration of Practitioner-Led Research on the 12th April 2007.

Findings from this project provide further evidence about the key role of foster carers in the lives of the children they look after, and how these relationships continue long after children leave the household. In addition, the impact that fostering has on family life, and how carers’ own children play an important part in welcoming other children into the household is clear. And, the experiences of these women emphasise how essential it is that all foster carers are given the space and opportunities to be listened to, and shown the respect that they deserve.

BAAF is using words and photographs from the project to produce a publication which will be available later in the summer of 2007 and could become a very useful tool in the recruitment of new carers, as well as a focus for support groups.