How to foster
What are the benefits of fostering with an independent fostering agency?
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 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
Fostering Assessment
Fostering Outcomes
Fostering Stories
Fostering Children UK
Children needing Fostering
Reasons for a child to be taken into Care
Fostering as a Career
Looked after Children
Top transferable job skills to become a foster carer
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 you Foster and Work?
Can you Foster with a Criminal Record
Fostering as a Single Parent
LGBT Family and Foster Care
Fostering across Cultures
Empty Nest Syndrome and Foster Care
10 things you can do when your Children fly the nest
Can I Foster?
Fostering Babies - Myth Busting
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 Service (MATS)
Young Children Fostering Placements
Difference between short and long-term fostering
Children who foster: impact of fostering on birth children
How to prepare your home for a foster child
Tips for coping when foster placements end
Tips for foster parents during Coronavirus
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 versus Adoption - What's the difference?
How Fostering can change a future
How to adopt from Foster Care
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How to prepare a Foster Child's bedroom
Online grooming - unwanted contact and how to identify it
Reading and storytelling with Babies and young Children
Supporting Children's Learning
Technology and Internet Safety advice
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The impact of early childhood traumas on adolescence and adulthood
Tips for coping with attachment disorders in Foster Children
Tips for supporting reunification in Foster Care
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Foster Child behaviour management strategies
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Form F Assessor
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Promoting the rights and wellbeing of persons with Disabilities
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Young People Charities
At first, this was done through donations to an existing charity or a volunteer organisation. Capstone has now also setup the Capstone Care Leavers Trust (CCLT) which awards grants to people in need who are aged 17-25 years and who have been in care in local authorities in England and Wales. As well as grants, the CCLT offers advice and guidance to young people. This helps improve their life chances.
Part of being in foster care is that the local authority steps into the place of the parents of the child. However, when the young person reaches leaving age, he or she is often thrust into a world that may not have the family support that an extended family might offer. It is common for some foster parents to remain in close contact with their foster family members after they have aged out of the system.
In spite of this, the circumstances for people who aged out of the fostering system are often stressful. In some cases, they are only 16 years old. Whereas most young people are able to continue living at home even when they become young adults, care leavers may not have the benefit of such support. They can enter into their adult lives without family to rely on and minimal financial resources.
The Capstone Care Leavers Trust has come up with a way to close this gap. The Trust provides a way for young people who have been in care to have access to financial support that is not available elsewhere. The CCLT awards grants for further and higher education courses, training courses, purchasing laptops, transportation costs to get to their study and training courses, driving lessons, the practical driving test, and for the purchase of household items such as a sofa, chairs, cooker, fridge, freezer, washing machine, bed, wardrobe, and drawers. CCLT may be able to assist with the costs of starting work, or paying for uniforms or work clothes that are not paid for by the employer.
The CCLT is not a replacement source for grants and other funding for care leavers from statutory or voluntary organisations which remain as the first line of support. Once these areas of support have been explored exhaustively, CCLT is then available to consider an application for a grant. If you have received a grant from the local authority or social services and the funding supplied was not enough to get the household items you need or to advance your education or personal development, you are eligible to apply to CCLT. If you have already had a CCLT grant, you need to wait 12 months before making another application.
The Capstone Care Leavers Trust makes a difference in the lives of people who have come up through the fostering system and who are without the kind of extended support that many young people have. It bridges their journey from being in care into the larger community.
For further information, please visit http://www.capstonecareleaverstrust.org/
Our team of friendly fostering advisors are on hand to answer any questions you may have. We can offer you honest and practical advice that can help you decide if becoming a foster carer is right for you.
You can contact us by phone and speak to our fostering advisors who are available to talk to you about becoming a foster carer.
You can contact us by completing our online form and our fostering advisors will respond to your queries within 24 hours.
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