Fostering a disabled child
The role of an independent fostering agency
What support is available for foster carers?
How to choose a foster care agency
Foster Care Fortnight: How to raise awareness about children in foster care
Can I choose who I foster?
How to foster
What are the benefits of fostering with an independent fostering agency?
What happens when a child is taken into care?
Fostering process: what happens on an initial home visit?
Can you foster if you have mental health issues?
Fostering with local authority vs independent agency
Interview: Life as a foster parent during the pandemic
A complete guide to becoming a foster carer
How Are Children in Foster Care Matched with Carers?
Foster Care Budgeting Tips
Becoming A Foster Carer
Benefits of becoming a foster parent
What is a Care Leaver?
What is a Foster Carer?
What is Foster Care?
Do I become a Foster Carer?
Fostering Regulations
How much do Foster Parents get paid?
How to Foster a Child
How long does it take to become a Foster Carer?
How to foster – everything you ever wanted to know
Facts about Foster Care
What are the Foster Care requirements?
Foster Care Handbook
Foster Carer Job Description
Changing IFA - Transferring to Capstone
Fostering Definition
Foster Care Statistics
What does Every Child Matters Mean for Foster Parents?
Fostering Stories
Fostering Children UK
Children needing Fostering
8 reasons why a child may be taken into care
Fostering as a Career
Looked after Children
Can you foster if you smoke or vape?
A guide to fostering assessments
LGBTQ+ Fostering
Equality, Inclusion & Anti-discriminatory Practice in Foster Care
What can disqualify you from foster care?
Can you foster if you’re on benefits?
Top transferable job skills to become a foster carer
Fostering as a same sex couple
Fostering while renting
Is there an age limit for fostering in the UK?
Do foster carers get a pension?
How to foster a child: A step by step guide
How do DBS Checks Work?
Can I foster if...?
Mythbusting the top 10 Foster Care Myths
Can I foster if I am disabled?
LGBT Fostering Mythbusting
Can I foster if I have pets?
Can I Foster A Child?
Can I Foster and Work?
Can you Foster with a Criminal Record
Can Single People Foster?
LGBT Family and Foster Care
Fostering across Cultures
Muslim Fostering
Christian Foster Care
Sikh Fostering
Empty Nest Syndrome and Foster Care
Can I Foster?
Fostering Babies and Young Children
Fostering Babies - Myths
Focusing on Parent & Child Fostering
Fostering Siblings
Fostering Teenagers
Fostering Teenagers - Breaking down the Myths
Fostering Unaccompanied and Asylum Seeking Children
Mother and Baby Foster Placements
Private Fostering
Therapeutic Fostering - Multi-disciplinary Assessment Treatment & Therapy Service (MATTS)
Young Children Fostering Placements
Difference between short and long-term fostering
Reunification and Birth Parents: A Guide for Foster Carers
What is an EHC Plan? A Guide for Foster Carers
How to prepare a child for becoming a care leaver
Children who foster: impact of fostering on birth children
Fostering LGBTQ+ Youth
How to prepare your home for a foster child
How to help a lonely child: A Guide for Foster Carers
What are the National Minimum Standards for Fostering Services?
10 tips for foster children's education
How to prepare your foster child for secondary school
Tips for coping when foster placements end
Tips for foster parents during Coronavirus
What happens if foster parents get divorced?
5 ways to manage Mother's Day with foster children
Tips for managing foster children's bedtime routines
How to handle foster child bullying
Fostering allowances and the gender pay gap
What discounts can foster carers get?
How to adopt from Foster Care
5 ways to manage Father's Day for children in foster care
8 most common fostering challenges
FosterTalk Membership with Capstone Foster Care
Supporting foster children's contact with birth families
A guide to independent fostering
Keeping Children Safe Online: A Guide For Foster Carers
Movies About Foster Care
Play-based learning strategies for foster carers
A Guide to the Staying Put Program
How to deal with empty nest syndrome
How to recognise signs of depression in foster children
Can you take a foster child on holiday?
Tips and advice on fostering with a disability
10 tips on connecting with your Foster Child
Fostering vs Adoption - What's the difference?
How Fostering can change a future
How to adopt from Foster Care
How to encourage children to read in Foster Care
How to prepare a Foster Child's bedroom
Reading and Storytelling with Babies and Young Children
Supporting Children's Learning
The 20 most recommended books Foster Carers and young people should read
Things you can do when your children leave home
The impact of early childhood traumas on adolescence and adulthood
Anxious Disorders in Foster Children
What is sexual abuse and sexual violence
Foster Child behaviour management strategies
Foster Parent Advice: What to expect in your first year of fostering
Capstone's twelve tips at Christmas
10 celebrities who grew up in Foster Care
Celebrating our Children and Young People
Could Millenials be the solution to the Foster Care crisis?
Do you work in Emergency Services?
Form F Assessor and Assessment Training
Foster Care Fortnight
Improving Children's Welfare - Celebrating Universal Children's Day
It's time to talk about Mental Health and Foster Care
New Year - New Career - Become a Foster Carer
Promoting the rights and wellbeing of persons with Disabilities
Refugee Week
Young people and Mental Health in a changing world
Young People Charities
From that time until now, our focus has been on finding ways to provide children with a bright and fulfilling life, the opportunity to learn, and protection from harm.
With United Nations Universal Children’s Day being celebrated on 20th November, as it has been since 1954, it is refreshing to look at the goal of Universal Children’s Day which is “to improve child welfare worldwide, promote and celebrate children’s rights and promote togetherness and awareness amongst all children.”
November 20th was chosen as Universal Children’s Day because it was 20 November 1959 when the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child. On 20 November 1989, the General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
United Nation’s Secretary-General António Guterres, in addressing the 2017 World Children’s Day said, “Dear young people, the future of our planet… the future peace of our world… is in your hands. I am sorry to say that, try as we might, we adults are letting you down.”
He continued to talk about how children are fleeing deadly conflicts, going hungry, often without necessary medicine, separated from their parents. Even in areas that are not suffering deadly conflicts, many children are bullied online or in school. There is discrimination based on their religion, the colour of their skin, or their ethnicity. There are also situations where children are exploited by adults. Guterres urged the global community to stop failing the children of the world.
In 2018, the effort to spread the word about the importance of valuing the children of the world uses the colour blue. Think of 20th November as a day for children, by children, where everyone can be part of building a world where every child is in school, safe from harm, and able to fulfil their potential.
Universal Children’s Day offers each of us an inspirational entry-point to advocate, promote and celebrate children’s rights, translating into dialogues and actions that will build a better world for children.
2018: Children are taking over and turning the world blue. While wearing a blue shirt, or carrying a blue accessory, or making a meal featuring blue food to share with your friends or people at work may seem like simple actions to take, these are all entry points to the discussion of children’s rights and the welfare of children. From discussion, dialogues can grow and develop. From dialogues, actions emerge. Actions can change a child’s world.
Changing the world for a child or young person is at the heart of everything that Capstone Foster Care does. We base our existence on six core values. These values help us build the team who can make the change to one child at a time. Each young person is an individual who by the very fact of being born, is entitled to the best that the world can offer.
As a society, as a community, and an individual, we can all contribute in our own way to making the world a better place. As noted, participating in the 2018 Universal Children’s Day “Children are taking over and turning the world blue” programme is one way to open up a dialogue about the necessity for us all to be involved in improving their lives. Capstone’s entire foundation is built on this, in all our efforts, as emphasised by our core values.
Core Value 1 – Promoting excellent outcomes for children and young people – building brighter futures into adulthood.
Core Value 2 – Putting safeguarding at the heart of the agency and making it everyone’s responsibility.
Core Value 3 – Investing in children leaving care, supporting transitions to independence and access to opportunities.
Core Value 4 – An outstanding quality of service for foster carers and their families (training, support, professionalism).
Core Value 5 – Listening, hearing and acting for those we support (advocacy).
Core Value 6 – Supporting and investing in our staff team to give their best.
Being aware of a child’s right to happiness is at the foundation of building a new and different world where people can thrive in their adulthood. If each person understands and embraces this approach to the new generation of children, the difference can be profound. What is involved in providing a happy childhood can be seen in the Declaration of the Rights of the Child. The Declaration describes in great detail how a child’s right to a happy childhood is paramount and how this goal can be achieved in 10 principles. The principles underlying this right are summarised as follows:
Without exception, every child is supposed to be entitled to the rights “without distinction or discrimination on account of race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status…”
Laws and regulations should be in place to allow children “to develop physically, mentally, morally, spiritually and socially in a healthy and normal manner and in conditions of freedom and dignity.”
All children are entitled to a name and a nationality.
Social security is essential, so the child can grow and develop in health.
Adequate nutrition, housing, recreation and medical services are a child’s right.
A physically, mentally or socially disadvantaged child is entitled to special treatment, education and care required by his or her particular condition.
The child is entitled to love and understanding to allow full and harmonious development of his or her personality. The child should grow up “in an atmosphere of affection and of moral and material security.” Free and compulsory education must be provided, which will promote the child’s general culture and to develop abilities, individual judgement, and a sense of moral and social responsibility, so that he or she can become a useful member of society. The child shall have full opportunity for play and recreation.
“The child shall in all circumstances be among the first to receive protection and relief.”
Protection from neglect, cruelty and exploitation is necessary. This includes trafficking, being employed before an appropriate minimum age or in an occupation injurious to health or education, or interfering with physical, mental or moral development.
The child is entitled to protection from “practices, which may foster racial, religious and any other form of discrimination.” It is the child’s right to be raised “in a spirit of understanding, tolerance, friendship among people, peace and universal brotherhood.”
In the cycle of life, children are our future as well as our promise to the future. Parenting, teaching, social support, environment, health care, and society are all part of what comprises our outcomes in the world. When we look at the meaning of a Universal Children’s Day, we can see the global necessity to value and support the rights of children.
Capstone begins with the basic building block of family in its effort to provide positive outcomes for children. With our experience and expertise in fostering, we are able to assess our incoming carers so that we only have the best. We nurture their skills and appreciate them throughout their career with us.
The first entry point is the suitability of the applicants to be foster parents. The process starts with Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS), Social Services, and medical checks. We conduct home risk assessments. While the assessments are being done, a recruitment coordinator gets to know the potential foster carer and his or her preferences, skills, and abilities.
Our relationships between members of the team – the foster parents, the social workers, the office staff, and management – is very personal. It is well understood that all members of the team have a voice.
Because we pay attention to our foster carers and continually reinforce our commitment to our core values, there is a consistency from office to office, from one carer to another, from placement to our experts. The strength of our service is based in the certain knowledge that we are a cohesive unit. We are a family that is supportive, generous, and open hearted. We have more than 150 staff supporting almost 650 carers. The amount of staff is an assurance that no carer is ever left waiting for an answer to a request for additional support, financial or otherwise, for any child in their care.
ecause of the secretary general’s comments about the children fleeing deadly conflicts, the idea of caring for unaccompanied and asylum-seeking children and young people comes to mind. In a chaotic atmosphere, they can suffer harassment or persecution because of their religion, race, political beliefs, social group, or nationality.
Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children may be sent to live with a family member or friend in a foreign country, bringing them into an environment where they can share a language, culture and faith. When this is not possible, these children are taken into care by local authorities and placed in foster care.
Capstone Foster Care has been proactive in finding ideal foster families across the UK to meet the needs of these children and young people. This is an example of the range of fostering skills our carers have. Placements for unaccompanied and asylum-seeking children and young people is not a standard type of fostering and yet, we have the capability. These are not children who are leaving a difficult home life. They are leaving a life where their family life was secure but the world around them was not.
Because Capstone’s goal is also to facilitate providing a happy childhood to all the children in our care, we provide training for any special needs that might arise. As with all our foster parents, our carers for children with disabilities need the same basic skills, which begin with patience and commitment.
Special training for this type of foster care may include learning special medical and communication skills. The training is always tailored to the type of disability, which may be a physical disability, a medical condition, or a learning disability. The latter range from autism to hyperactivity to a range of cognitive disorders. As the principles in the Declaration of the Rights of the Child noted, physically, mentally or socially disadvantaged children are entitled to special treatment, education and care required by his or her particular condition. To this end, Capstone provides the support, emotional and financial, to assist with the extra care and time needed for health care and feeding routines.
We also have foster carers who provide respite care, which is one way for other carers to have a scheduled holiday. Often, the respite carer is part of a foster child’s regular routine where an annual holiday for the foster parent or parents has the child go to the respite carer, much like visiting an extended family member such as an aunt and uncle or grandparents.
We live in a shrinking world, where technology brings us all closer together. However, technology also allows us to remain at arm’s length from one another. Texting may have replaced meeting for coffee to discuss the world in general and our lives in particular.
Children in the UK may seem to be protected from the deadly conflicts the secretary general spoke of, but it is incumbent on us to be aware of and involved in the Universal Children’s Day and the need to improve the welfare of all children. It is one thing to say that this is “a day for children, by children, all over the world to help save children’s lives, fight for their rights and help them fulfil their potential.”
It is another thing to be part of this special day. We are going to participate in this fun day, and promote its serious message, because this is our guiding principle every day – ensuring that all children have a happy childhood.
If you’ve got any questions or would like to find out more about fostering with Capstone, fill out the form below.
An experienced fostering advisor from your local area will then be in touch.
Start the conversation today. Our team of friendly advisors are on hand to answer any foster care questions you may have. We can offer you honest and practical advice that can help you decide if becoming a foster carer is the right path for you.