Navigating the Fostering Assessment Process with Ben Rice

So you’re interested in fostering?

What happens after you make first contact? 

What kinds of questions will you be asked? What can you expect? What kind of information will you be given? What is the assessment process like? What happens on a home visit? 

Will you be expected to know what kind of fostering you want to do from the off? (And what if you don’t yet know?) 

Who and what are the ‘Panel’? And what happens when you are invited in front of them? 

And how long will this all take? 

For someone new to the world of fostering it can all seem a bit daunting so let's ease those worries and make the unfamiliar, familiar. Join us, as we uncover the fostering assessment process with seasoned expert, Ben Rice, the practice manager at Bernardo's Fostering and Adoption in Northern Ireland. 
 
 In this compelling conversation, Ben enlightens us on the different types of foster care: emergency, short term, long term, and foster-to-adopt. He walks us through the four-session preparation course that potential foster carers and adopters undertake, highlighting the indispensable role of foster parents in the daily lives of the children. We unravel the critical issues such as age requirements, experience with children, convictions, and the importance of a secure and nurturing home environment. 
 
 Finally, we delve into the decision-making process post-assessment, shedding light on how the fostering panel and social worker's roles contribute. From assessing an applicant's comprehension of fostering to ensuring the entire family's support, we cover it all. So, buckle up as we navigate the timescales of the assessment process, discuss how to prepare for the panel's decision, and equip you for this life-altering adventure. Let's journey together, shaping futures one foster child at a time.

To learn more about fostering and adoption with us, visit our Linktr.ee https://linktr.ee/barnardosfosteringni

Transcript

Ness: 0:00

I'm sitting here with Ben Rice, who's a practice manager in Barnardo's Fostering and Adoption in Northern Ireland, and I'm Ness and I look after the marketing. I guess what we want to talk about today is the assessment process, because there's a lot of terminology that comes into social work and anything to do with social workers, which can be a little bit off-putting, I think, for people who don't know very much about it. So let's pretend I am interested in fostering and perhaps I have put a phone call into the service, or I put an expression of interest in from the website and I'm about to get a phone call from a social worker to talk to me. In that first phone call, what can I expect?

Ben: 0:48

In that first phone call we'll first just say, if you submit an online inquiry, we would really like to be in touch with you within 24 hours, obviously Monday to Friday, 9 to 5. And then really, that first phone call, it's really just getting a little bit of information about yourself, about your interest in fostering or adoption, what has brought you to the point of making that call, because we know that quite often this thought can be there for some time before they reach that point. So we sort of touch a little bit around that in terms of motivation, but going to that in more detail later.

Ben: 1:28

But it really is, then, do you meet our initial criteria? And I suppose things like in terms of age. There is a minimum age of 21. There's no actual official maximum age, but obviously we need to consider people's health and medical circumstances. So if there are any queries around that, there is a medical assessment that's completed for every applicant. We'll want to hear about your experience of children. You do not have to have parented children, it's really important to make that clear but we do ask you for child care in some capacity, may be within your wider family network and employment, or voluntary work. It's really important that you have childcare experience to draw on. Really when, as we're working through the assessment process, but also in terms of just trying to, I suppose, transfer your experience and skills you've developed around that in terms of caring for the needs of looked after children.

Ben: 2:28

We'll look at that. We will ask if there have been any convictions. Serious offenses. Convictions will not rule you out, but obviously we'll need to consider the nature of those and we'll be having a conversation around them.

Ben: 2:42

We'll ask things around your relationship, such as if you're in a relationship, we absolutely welcome applications from single applicants, but if in a relationship, we want to ensure that there's stability in that relationship: you've been together for a period of time and we'll look at that. We'll consider the ages of your children, if there are any children, and what that might mean. So those are the initial conversations we'll have in that initial inquiry call. What will happen now is, if you meet our essential criteria, we will invite you to an information session and we tend to run those every two weeks, usually on Friday, and that will look in a wee bit more detail about the needs of the children, what will be expected of you as a foster care and a little bit more about the assessment process. And really at that point, you take away what we call an Expression of Interest form and that will be sent to you. Should you submit that, we will then allocate a social worker to complete a home visit to you in your home.

Ness: 3:47

Great. Let me just recap a second, Ben. In that first phone conversation, there'll be quite a lot of information gathering and one of the important things is to talk about those essential criteria. Can we just recap what those essential criteria are? Now? You did mention being over 21; there isn't an upper age limit but we do have to consider health concerns; a spare bedroom, would that be fair to say?

Ben: 4:11

Absolutely, a spare bedroom. If there is an interest in siblings, younger siblings can share for a short term period, but really you would need two spare bedrooms if you were considering long term fostering or adoption of siblings.

Ness: 4:24

And then they would be given an Expression of Interest form. Is that right?

Ben: 4:28

That's right, and should they submit that, then we will allocate a social worker to complete the home visit.

Ness: 4:36

So we've got an allocated social worker who is then working with you through the process, and there's this home visit. What happens at the home visit? Now, do I have to sort of straighten out the cushions and make sure I'm terribly tidy and get the tea and buns out? What happens then?

Ben: 4:53

Well, look, we would hope that it's as informal as possible. Really, that's a two-way process. It's to allow us to give you, the applicant, more information about the process and about the needs of the children, but also for us to get a lot more detail about the applicants. So we will look at things. We'll start off, we will have a look around the home. We'll be interested in that. We'll be looking for any obvious health and safety hazards maybe in terms of the outside of the home and the garden. We will have to see the room or rooms that they would potentially use for a foster child. So, yes, there is an element of us needing to see around the home just to ensure there are no immediate concerns in terms of the house itself. We will then start to take a bit more information just about the applicant or applicants, if it's a couple.

Ben: 5:51

We'll ask really things, like again, maybe more detail about their experience of caring for children. We'll ask about their employment history. We'll focus in around motivation and ask a bit more detail about that. What has brought them to this stage? Really, it's a lengthy enough form that we work through. It will ask again just in terms of whether there are any medical issues? We'll ask about people's health. I think it's important we understand that when people make that initial call they maybe don't want to fully disclose everything over the phone to someone they've just met for the first time. So we do understand that that is something, maybe more private issues that they want to discuss face to face with a social worker in their homes or things around, potentially medical issues, possibly convictions, any previous social services involvement with their own families. So we'll look at that.

Ben: 6:48

But really, again, understanding what their experience has been of children but then also talking to them about the types of referrals that we get, needs which are quite complex, of the children that are being placed with us. So we'll look at that. We'll want to hear a bit about the family's children again, if there are any, just in terms of ages, where they go to school or any other adult children in the home. We'll ask about support networks, which is really crucial for any foster carer. So it's almost a little mini assessment, if you like, where we get as much information as possible about the applicants. We then take that back. So the social workers, I'm a practice manager in the team but have oversight of the recruitment, so the social workers bring those back to me and we have a conversation about the visit and really look at whether we feel the applicant, or couple, have the capacity to foster or adopt with our service.

Ness: 7:50

So that's good. So basically, in that home visit it's really a Getting To Know You. Although you have a form and you're asking quite intense questions, really it's a chance to reflect on why someone might want to foster, talking about the realities of fostering children from the care system, looking at expectations, checking and making sure that the family setup, whatever that is, or home setup, would be suitable for a child. Can I ask a really silly question: if I was very interested in being a foster carer and I had a spare bedroom, but perhaps that spare bedroom was being used as an office and I bought you in as a social worker and said 'I think this room would work', would that like strike me off immediately, or would that be okay if it wasn't already decorated to the tastes of a ten-year-old child?

Ness: 8:39

I mean, I'm being flippant here, but I can imagine it would be quite anxiety inducing if you were sort- of interested in fostering, you had a spare room, it wasn't actually being used at the moment and it wasn't decorated, to say, for a child at the moment. Would that be an issue?

Ben: 8:54

That is actually quite a common thing we find, that it may be that the room isn't set up for a child. Quite often, if it's a third bedroom, fourth bedroom, it may be set up as an office. We would just be asking questions in terms of how will an applicant family manage without that? Are they working from home? How would they manage that, should a child be placed with them? But no, we will work with people around that. Suppose we're speaking, with a bigger picture, in terms of there will be an expectation then that the room is very much ready prior to them being approved as foster carers and its not going to be used as an office. We always say to people you know it's often good for a child to have a blank canvas so that they can really help and put their mark on it and not walk into a room that is the finished article. People shouldn't feel any pressure about having a room ready and ready to go before they've even been approved.

Ness: 9:55

Now that's great to hear. The other thing I wanted to ask when people come into fostering and fostering and adoption, they might not necessarily know the differences between fostering and adoption and they might not realise that there are lots of different types of foster carers. So there might be someone who comes in as a short breaks or respite carer or someone who does short term fostering, and short term fostering can be considered up to two years, as I understand it. And then there's long term fostering, where a child may be placed until adulthood, and then there's, we have, a fostering to adoption service and these are very big considerations when you are very early in the process. I mean, are people expected to already know this stuff, or is that something that they're able to sort of explore with their social worker through the process?

Ben: 10:44

Absolutely, absolutely. The only slight difference would be if they were interested in foster to adopt. That is a different form, essentially. So for people who are interested in that, we would be considering that as an adoption assessment from the outset. Certainly, people who are interested in fostering we've talked there about the different formats and we would work with people around that. We're not currently, you know, recruiting for 'short breaks', which would have previously been called 'respite', but certainly we are interested in recruiting people who can care for children on a full time basis, whether that be for emergency, for a few weeks, months, through to short term, as you said, which is right up to two years, and then right through then to the long term, caring for a child until they're a teen - but quite often those young people will remain beyond their teens, but just not under fostering arrangements.

Ben: 11:50

We will work with people during the assessment process because it's really important that we get that right. Yes, there's a huge need for full time foster participants, but we will try to work with people in terms of what they feel comfortable with. But there is that absolute need out for all of those types of placements.

Ness: 12:10

Yes, and as we start with this podcast, we'll be exploring those different types of fostering and why those needs exist as they do. So we've had the home visit. We've probably been left with a few things to think about as well. What then happens after that first home visit?

Ben: 12:29

So, as I said, we will discuss that and if we feel that people have have potential, have capacity to come on board with us, we will invite them on to our preparation training. So we run a joint preparation course for prospective foster carers and adopters. That is a four session course, usually spread across the two weeks. That would be facilitated by one of our social workers, one or two of our social workers, alongside a foster carer. I certainly find that people coming to those courses, yes, they want to hear from social workers but, more importantly, they want to hear from foster careers who are living it day in, day out. So it's really important to have them as part of that course.

Ben: 13:14

So, yeah, and again, that will look at more detail, really at things like what are the needs of the children, and it will look at the legal aspect you know in terms of fostering and adoption, and it will look at understanding the emotional needs, and I'm thinking about therapeutic care is really an introduction to the therapeutic parenting.

Ben: 13:41

It'll look at preparing. It's difficult, as you're only beginning a process, but you're also starting to learn about how you prepare for children, moving on from your care, because it's absolutely crucial that foster carers have an understanding of that and the importance of, you know, capturing memories and, you know, having mementos and albums that they can keep and really their journey, the child's journey with them and preparing them for that move on. Because children will move on for many different reasons and it might be that, you know, they're returning to birth family. It might be that they're moving on to an adoptive placement or their long term foster placement. So it's a really important part of their journey that care should be comfortable and ready to support them with that transition. So we look at that in the training as well.

Ness: 14:27

So it's a real insight, isn't it? Into how children end up in the care system, how the care system works, what the foster carers role within that is on a legal level, on a practical level, on a safeguarding level. But also there's the emotional side, the therapeutic side, understanding how attachment works with children and for yourself, and learning to, when you have those endings, to have good, positive ending if a child is moving on. And I guess the other important thing about that sort of introductory training, is you get to meet other people in the system too who are coming in as applicants. So when an enquirer, I'm an enquirer, and I've gone into this introductory series of sessions and I've decided I really do want to go ahead, I definitely want to go further. What happens next?

Ben: 15:19

So, really sorry, it is probably quite useful to explain the stage one and stage two assessment process. So for those people who submit the Expression of Interest, sorry, who we invite into the preparation course, we will also send them what we call the Registration of Interest form, so that really is supposed to the formal application. So they'll be sent that ahead of the training. When they return that to the service, that's when they move into Stage One of the process and that will allow us then to proceed with the mandatory checks. The mandatory checks, like their NI access and the medical form that I referred to earlier and social services check. So we will have that started, in the meantime.

Ben: 16:13

You know the applicants will be waiting on the training. When they finish the training then basically what we do is we can start the assessment process but they won't officially move to stage two of that process until the checks have all be returned as an addition to the references. So we'll be seeking three personal references and also employment references. So when all of those checks are back the applicants can move to Stage Two of the assessment.

Ness: 16:41

So that Stage One process, you're relying on other organisations to feedback, information, references, medical checks, etc. DBS checks. I'm going to ask you a 'how long is a piece of string question' now, on average, how long does it take for you to get through that Stage One process with all that information gathering?

Ben: 17:02

We aim for it to be completed within two months, but, as you rightly pointed out, Ness, it is dependent on how quickly other agencies can get those back to us, as well as referees that have been nominated by the applicants. But certainly we work towards a two month time scale for that.

Ness: 17:21

I mean, I can imagine that it might feel a little bit invasive having to go through all these processes, but I suppose it's helpful to remember that because you become a foster parent for a child of the state, you are looking after a precious child of somebody else and I guess it's really important that we know that the people who come through the process are safe to look after children. So it must be a bit of a balance. It's sort of like, yes, it might feel a bit invasive having all these sorts of checks in place, but I think all of us, if for any reason any of our children had to be looked after by somebody else who wasn't related to us, we would also want those checks to be in place. So that's Stage One. Tell me about assessmentStage Two.

Ben: 18:13

Okay, so that's, as I say, when all the checks have been returned and you're allocated an assessing social worker. So that may be one of the social workers here within our team, but we also have a pool of independent assessors that we've rely on. They're very experienced assessors, fostering assessors and some adoption assessors. The social worker would be allocated to the applicant and really that begins the what we refer to as the Home Study. So that social worker would visit the home. Several interviews. If it's a couple, there'll probably have at least two individual interviews, but the vast majority of the home study is being together as a couple and again, it's just really developing in all of the areas that I talked about earlier. We will bring people back to really, I suppose, talk about their experience right through childhood, because it's in terms of what their experience of being parented and then how that has informed them and their adult lives and how they have gone on to care for their children themselves. Really with that assessment process, we're looking to draw out what people's strengths are in terms of being able to meet the needs of the children we're placing. But just as importantly, if not more importantly, what are their vulnerabilities? Because no one comes to this process the finished article, and there's no expectation of that and it's really crucial and important for us to think about where are there some vulnerabilities with this applicant or this couple? And sometimes it can be maybe around loss, because people will have experienced different forms of loss throughout their lives, whether it be younger, or even maybe loss of a parent or a partner. And what we're very, I suppose, careful about is the potential for that loss to be triggered again, because we are placing children who have experienced a huge amount of loss and then potentially then what that triggers in people is loss. So when those children move on from their care, potential to trigger that loss. So we will look at something like that in quite a bit of detail and we're supposed that.

Ben: 20:39

we feel that it has been sufficiently resolved for someone and they've been able to work through that as a process.

Ben: 20:48

And really, yeah, it's a bit of resilience I mean, it's a term that foster carer will hear a lot. It's really, I suppose, us evidencing people's resilience, the ability to really work through all of the challenges that fostering will undoubtedly bring to their lives. That they have, they've been able to do that previously and in other experiences and will be able to bring that, because ultimately, we need people who have that 'stickability', who will persevere with these children, because they're coming with such a level of trauma that that will manifest in their everyday lives in terms of whether it be challenging behaviour or perhaps they are very difficult to engage emotionally. Children who become very dysregulated can become very, very heightened very, very quickly and need a lot of support to regulate and what we refer to as co-regulation, the caregiver helping them to regulate. So those are just, we saw some of the challenges and we need to make sure that people have the necessary resilience to really work with children and be able to see them through these challenges.

Ness: 21:59

Yes, it sounds like a very reflective process and quite a supportive one. Stage Two. These are quite intimate conversations about our strengths and our vulnerabilities, as you say, and perhaps through this process we may learn where your particular strengths lie. I suppose, all the way through the process, I'm wondering, you know, how active that decision- making is about, you know, the kinds of fostering you might be willing or interested in pursuing in this process, so I guess that's really interesting. I do remember one of our foster carers telling me that he really quite enjoyed the process of looking back at his own experiences and how it's, how it to gauge his own philosophies around children, and I just thought that was really quite lovely.

Ben: 22:50

It's something we often hear. You know people refer to the process as being quite cathartic. You know they're being asked to think about and reflect on things that they haven't really thought about in years, if at all, and people learn about themselves in this process. We've found that couples will learn more about one another as part of this process. It's really interesting. Yes, I mean you touched on that earlier, in essence, in terms of it may feel a little bit intrusive, but as long as people can understand why we're asking questions and we would always encourage applicants to question that, to query that if they're not quite sure why a question is being asked and you know we will talk about people, as we'll ask about people's relationships. You know, bring them back to when they met and how the relationship developed. You know how that works now and how do they support one another, what are their roles, and we'll look at their support network and talk about that earlier how important that is. You know, will they have people who they can call upon for emotional and practical support? We'll ask them to really think about their experiences of childcare and how, as I said, we can relate those to how they'll meet the children that we are placing. We'll introduce discussion around diversity, you know, and look at people's views and understanding of that.

Ben: 24:16

It's quite a significant piece of work and it will take quite a number of visits to work through. But I always say that, you know, we work to a timescale. But at Stage Two we like to work to sort of a four month timescale. But assessments take as long as they need to take. Sometimes there is a need for things to go on hold. Others run really smoothly and comfortably come within that timescale. But we will, I suppose, be responsive to, you know, the needs of the applicants.

Ness: 24:50

And if those applicants have children themselves, will those children be spoken to as well?

Ben: 24:57

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'll add all children, and I suppose what I always say is who's the better, what a better referee than your own children coming into this process? So we'll certainly speak to adult children, whether they're living at home or have moved out. But we'll also speak to the younger kids, but we'll do that in a very sensitive, child focused way. If it's very young children, you know, mum or dad or both can be present to support the child.

Ben: 25:31

You know, with that, and it's really supposed just making sure that everyone's voice is heard as part of this process. I mean, it's a really good question, actually, and that's something I should have referred to earlier, I suppose. Right, take it right back to the initial visit. We will not speak to children then, but what we will ask is what is their understanding of their application? You know, are they aware? Are they on board? And that's a question that we have to really keep asking, you know, right, throughout, because we won't proceed, you know, with applicants if there's any suggestion that their children are not on board, because we talk about it's the whole family that fosters and it would just be too difficult to proceed if everyone wasn't on the same page.

Ness: 26:22

Yeah, that makes complete sense because that could cause distress, not just for the existing children, but the foster child who's coming in and already has difficulties. So I can see why that would be. That would be something we have to be careful about. I don't want to go away from the process, but I want to stick a pin in ages of children and then ages of foster children in the matching. If we have a little bit of time to talk about matching, just at the end, that would be great. So after this Stage Two is completed, what happens next?

Ben: 26:56

So Stage Two effectively is the assessment completed. The manager for the social worker will really sign that off and it will go then to our panel advisor and if all is fine and satisfactory, it will go to our Fostering Panel or we'll have a joint Fostering and Adoption Panel. Now, and yet really it's their role to, I suppose, scrutinise the report and really make a decision as a group on whether or not to recommend, it's only a recommendation to recommend the applicant or couple to be approved as a foster care or adoptor. I say 'recommendation' because then that goes to our agency decision maker whose our Head of Service who will make the final decision. So, yes, there will be a panel. A panel will meet and the ADM, who is the decision maker, will then really complete that process, usually within two weeks after the panel.

Ness: 27:56

So I'm going to go drill down a tiny bit more into that. Who is the panel? Who are these people who are making these recommendations?

Ben: 28:05

Well, it's made up of, I suppose, different individuals. We have a chair who is experienced retired social worker with huge experience in fostering and adoption. It will be made up of other Barnardo's managers from other services. We have other independent social workers on the panel. We have foster carers and adopters also on the panel currently or previous foster carers and adopters.

Ben: 28:40

So it has quite a different, quite a significant make up of people coming from different, different roles, and so they will be sent the report in advance with all this voting documentation and then they will come together at the panel and we'll talk through the assessment and really I suppose it's coming back to what I said earlier in terms of what are, what are the applicant strengths, what are their vulnerabilities, so they may have more questions. They will have more questions on the day of panel and they will be put those to the applicants and also the assessing social worker. So all that conversation will be had without the applicants or social worker in the room and then they will be invited into the room and conversation is had. And ultimately, at the end of that, a recommendation is made in terms of their ability to foster or adopt.

Ness: 29:37

Wow, that's exciting. So when an applicant comes to panel, have they, in their heads, have they decided what kind of fostering? Have they already worked that out with their social workers? So they're going into panel, they know the kind of fostering that they want to do, but they want to look after, you know, say, family groups, brothers and sisters, or if they want to do short-term, or, you know, they're looking to foster to adopt. I mean, all that has, all of that has already been resolved in the process itself, before they come to panel?

Ben: 30:06

That's been discussed. That's part of the process, the Stage Two assessment process, because the assessing social worker has to make a recommendation. So the recommendation would be, for example, one, or maybe, two children or a sibling group for full-time fostering. We might have a caveat of age in there and that will have been discussed. We tend to approve all of our carers for not to attain, but it might be that the carers would have a preference for, maybe primary school-based children or preference for working with teenagers, you know. So there may be a caveat in there around that. But certainly, yes, we would expect to be clear that they want to foster or adopt, and we try to keep the approval as broad as we can so that all of the forms of fostering that we discussed are, you know, are included in that approval.

Ness: 31:02

Yeah, okay, that's good. So I've gone to panel, I've been approved, say as a initially short-term foster carer, woohoo! And then what happens? Does a child just appear on my doorstep?

Ben: 31:19

So then the fun starts! So once, yes, so once we have the Agency Decision Maker's decision, then the couple, sorry shouldn't say couple, the applicant, our applicants can/ will be added to our availability list. So we as a service take referrals daily and so we've referrals that come in from us from all of the Trusts, the Health and Social Care Trusts, and really then we look to who is available within our service that we can potentially match those children with- and the need far outweighs the capacity, I'm afraid, because they're just such a short-fall in foster carers. So we receive so many referrals on a daily basis that we simply cannot place because we don't have the capacity. But we will look. You know you'd asked earlier about about matching. So we will look at referrals coming in and what we feel is a suitable match for the newly approved carer .

Ness: 32:26

And coming back to my pinned question, I always forget my pinned question! If you had children, say, who were 8 and 12, would you be thinking about the ages of a child that you could place into that family with an 8 and a 12 year old? Would you be thinking about they can't be older, say, than a 12 year old, or what are the some of the thoughts or criteria that go into that?

Ben: 32:52

Sorry. So if they're the birth children of the foster parents, yes, the birth children I say 8, I've just picked that out of a hat.

Ness: 32:58

So there's an 8 and 12 year old in the birth family as existing children. Does that come into play in terms of the decision making around the child you might place?

Ben: 33:08

It does because we try to keep a two year age gap between the age of the foster child and the birth children and the family.

Ness: 33:17

Two years either way. Either way.

Ben: 33:22

So you would be looking at 6 and under 14 and above, or bang in the middle 10, I suppose. And it's a really good question because it often comes up, because you know, foster carers will often have the birth children who are still maybe school age. And it's something that comes up and something that may be very mindful of when it comes to matching and it can then narrow, I suppose, the number of referrals that we can look at because of the restrictions around age.

Ben: 33:55

And really that's there, I suppose, from experience. It's quite often very difficult for people coming into this process to understand why that's the case, but believe me, it's based on experience in terms of placing children too close in age and competing need and it just not working. And it's something that we absolutely try our best. I mean something that can be a little regular with it, but not much. We would try, we'd absolutely try to keep that age gap as best we possibly can.

Ness: 34:24

Yeah, okay, I can see that. So there's a matching process that is going on. Presumably there's a matching process conversation going on in the building between social worker and manager? And then a conversation with the potential foster carer about the child and how much information might they be given about the child beforehand? I know that's a cheeky question because I know we don't get very much information sometimes.

Ben: 34:50

Well, exactly that. They'll be giving everything that we have, but quite often, as you can imagine, if this child is just coming into care, so has just been removed from their parental care, it'll be very much an emerging picture. Social services might only have limited information. So certainly we will share absolutely everything with the carers that we have, but quite often they themselves, then, once a child is placed, maybe the people who are starting to then build a picture of these children and actually being able to provide a more accurate picture of the child's needs. That's more so for the children just coming into care. Obviously, then there's so many children for us about who have been in care for some time. They've maybe had multiple placements, multiple moves, so there'll be a lot more information about those children and again, you know that will be shared, whereas we're very dependent on what's provided to us by the referring social worker, from the Trust, and if we don't feel there's enough information, then we will be going back and then saying, 'Look, I'm sorry, but we need, we need a bit more here and for us to, you know, effectively match with this family, particularly newly approved carers who haven't done it before, haven't experienced fostering before, and we we really want to try and get that matched as right as we possibly can, you know, for newly-approved carers'. But that is a challenge, it's a challenge of the system. It isn't easy, as I say, particularly for those kids where there's very limited information. So then, as you say, we'll be having conversations in the building, in the service, in terms of whether we should even be approaching the carers and we'll consider what are the matching considerations here in terms of age and, you know, geography, the complexities of the children's needs. It's something we have to be very mindful of.

Ben: 36:49

In terms of placing for the first time with newly-approved carers, if we feel there is a strong enough match, we will touch base then with the foster carers. I'll have a conversation and, you know, talk it through. It's sometimes you don't have the luxury of time. You know you can have a referral that a child needs to be placed that day, the following day or by the end of the week, so there's less planning time. You may have referrals where you do have that time, the luxury of that, which is really what you really like, because then you can start to plan in terms of introductions and making sure that the transition, you know, is as best as possible you can. They tend to be in the minority. I'm afraid those tend to be more the emergency type stuff that we get and the placements needed, and almost immediately. So it is really crucial that those conversations happen, happen early on, that we have as much information as possible and share that with the foster family.

Ness: 37:47

That's great, Ben. I mean, before we go, I mean to quickly summarise: the whole assessment application process is just about making sure that this is the most productive and positive experience for everyone involved, isn't it really? I mean, the process is looking into everything from your practical background, your work, your economic situation, your emotional history, if you like, really to prepare you for having a child and hopefully having that child successfully placed, for however long that child needs that placement. And so all of this process is about really, ultimately, these very vulnerable children's needs and of which, sadly, there are far too many in the system and not enough 'resources', to use a social worker term but what we actually mean are foster carers, families from all walks of life who can come forward and apply. So, look, thank you so much.

Ness: 38:48

I mean I'm sure we'll have other conversations about different aspects of fostering in the future, Ben, for this podcast, but I think that's a really helpful start and hopefully whoever's listening to this will find it quite helpful. A sort of lifting of the wizard's curtain to see the little man behind. That is a Wizard of Oz reference, just in case you were wondering where I was going with that! Anyway, thank you so much, Ben, and I will speak to you soon, thank you.