You are absolutely not expected to foster on your own. We make sure you have the support networks around you that you’ll need to help you support a foster child, both professionally and personally. Here’s some of the support you can expect.

Your supervising social worker

All foster carers get assigned a supervising social worker to support them when they are approved to look after our children and young people.

Maggie and Mike say: “The team at Brighter Futures for Children provides lots of support in this direction – training, mentoring and so on… and there is always someone to talk to.”

Marion tell us: “You may have some concerns about certain aspects and perhaps around how you will cope, but Brighter Futures for Children provide lots of training courses to give you the tools you need to deal with the situations that crop up. You can reach out to your supervising social worker, and there is a very good network of foster carers there to give you their advice too.”

Your own buddy

When you’re approved, one of our experienced foster carers will be assigned to you as a buddy. They are there to provide a friendly line of support and will be at the other end of the phone, whether you just need them for a chat or if you want to ask for some advice. In one of our foster carer’s words: ‘We were assigned a buddy and she was an absolute godsend! She was there for all those little things that you don’t feel like you want to bother your supervising social worker with.’

Reading Carers’ Link

Reading Carers’ Link is a group run by foster carers, for foster carers in the Reading area and it a wonderful support to foster families. They organise training and support for the adult foster carers and much needed social events for the foster and birth children.

‘Reading Carers’ Link has been a lifeline of support for me’

‘We feel privileged to be part of the Brighter Futures for Children fostering community and our children are no exception’

Your own support networks

Liz is a single foster carer, she explains: “It can be tiring on your own, but I’ve been so lucky to have a fantastic support network around me, from friends, family and my church. I absolutely couldn’t do it without my support network, so make sure you get all your friends on board. I also get more respite care support, and am close to our community of foster carers in Reading so we’re all good at helping each other out.”

The child’s support networks

Each child will have their own social worker to support them, this is different to your supervising social worker.

Sally and Connor work with a child’s social worker before they join the family to see what they can do to settle them into their new home: “Well, we’ll ask their social worker what kind of music they like so that we can have it playing on in the background sometimes. Or we’ll find out what their favourite football team is so that we can follow the scores and drop it into conversation. It’s about the little things you can do.”

24/7 support

As well as all of the above, we know that life doesn’t happen between 9am and 5pm. For that, we have an emergency support phone line open all hours of the day, seven days a week.

…This is fostering.

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Our goal is to find more foster carers for our children and young people in Reading. How can you help? 

  • If you’d like to find out more about fostering and become a foster carer yourself, get in touch with us. Our friendly fostering team are at the other end of the line on 0118 469 3020. You can also enquire and you’ll get a call back.
  • If you’re not able to foster yourself but would like to help, you can help us spread the word.
    • Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and share our posts
    • Tell someone if you think they’d be a great foster carer! This can be a family member, friend or colleague.
    • Invite someone to one of our information events.