Fostering a disabled child
The role of an independent fostering agency
How to choose a foster care agency
Can I choose who I 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?
Fostering with local authority vs independent agency
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
What is a Care Leaver?
What is a Foster Carer?
Fostering Regulations
How long does it take to become a Foster Carer?
What are the Foster Care requirements?
Changing IFA - Transferring to Capstone
8 reasons why a child may be taken into care
Fostering as a Career
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
Can you foster if you have mental health issues?
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?
What is the difference between residential care and foster care?
Fostering Babies and Young Children
What is Kinship Care?
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
How does therapeutic fostering work?
Young Children Fostering Placements
Difference between short and long-term fostering
Types of self-harm
A Guide to the Foster Care Handbook
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
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
New Year - New Career - Become a Foster Carer
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/
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.
