What is foster care?

We have worked with New Chapters for a number of years delivering talks and training to foster carers, mentoring children in their care and also delivering motivational talks and workshops to children and foster carers. We have always found New Chapters a pleasure to work with, they have the same child centred values we hold that EVERY child has the ability to thrive in life and as adults we have to understand, connect and believe in each child we care for putting children and relationships first. We are proud to be associated with New Chapters and hope this relationship will continue for many years.

We are working with New Chapters to help create a collaborative approach to supporting young people. We have developed a partnership in order to help meet the needs of the young people, supporting them to access boxing and further develop their education. BrightStar is a not for profit organisation, based in Shifnal, Shropshire, that uses boxing and education to empower vulnerable young people to make positive changes to transform their lives.

Keep up with the excellent training program New Chapters and keep supporting your carers to the highest standards. Thank you for all you do.” Our mission, vision and values are important to us and they are at the core of everything we do at New Chapters Fostercare. If you too share our ethos, and helping children on to recovery is your priority, we would love to invite you to become part of our family. Let’s chat about your first steps into the world of fostering and how we can best help you. Discover New Chapters Fostercare today.

Our experience of joining New Chapters from our Local Authority has been such a positive journey. The help with all aspects of daily fostering life is always there, you only have to ask! Support is so important for fostering, New Chapters have helped guide us to take that support which was sadly not always there for us beforehand. The whole team at New Chapters, including carers, has been so welcoming to us and we have always felt part of the team from day one. My only regret about the move is we didn’t do it years ago!

RGT has provided training for New Chapters foster carers and support staff and has also worked with some of the young people placed with them. I have been struck by the high level of trauma-informed care provided by them and the commitment of the agency to the young people in their care and to their caregivers. They provide a genuine wrap around service to young people with complex needs and I would not hesitate in recommending their services to other agencies and professionals.

I am an independent trainer and have worked with New Chapters for a number of years. Their therapeutic parenting makes them one of the most child focused and supportive agencies that I have the pleasure of working along side.

All interactions with New Chapters staff are very positive and supportive. I feel that they all genuinely care about myself and my young person’s emotional well-being. I am always singing their praises to anyone who speaks to me about becoming a potential foster carer. New Chapters have always done whatever they can to support us whenever we’ve needed it.” Our mission, vision and values are important to us and they are at the core of everything we do at New Chapters Fostercare. If you too share our ethos, and helping children on to recovery is your priority, we would love to invite you to become part of our family.

Both myself and my young person have been able to access support when we’ve needed it during the lockdowns. The agency’s family support worker Sarah, has been particularly supportive of my young person. The online group for carers has been a great source of help and support too. As we live locally to the New Chapters office my young person might bump into Sarah who also lives locally and other staff and she will engage with them. I think this has helped my young person feel part of her local community as well as friendship groups and some part-time work she used to do.

We have worked with New Chapters since they began trading as they share the ethos of child centred practice. Care for the children and foster carers is at the forefront of this organisation’s philosophy and we have seen how a smaller, locally based fostering agency has impacted on the lives of children and their carers over the past five years. Their professionalism and attention to detail was recognised in their recent Ofsted report and we hope to continue to have a successful, mutually supportive relationship going forward.

So, you’re thinking of becoming a foster carer. I’m sure you’ve got lots of questions, like will it affect my lifestyle, my relationships or even my family? Well it definitely will. I have been a foster carer for over twelve years now and it has certainly affected my life, although not in a bad way, but rather in a positive and life affirming way. I can honestly say my wife and I becoming foster carers is one of the best decisions we have ever made. There will be highs and there will be lows and everything in between. There will be days when you think “why am I doing this”, but there will also be days when you’ll know why. You will just “get it” and the breakthrough you make with the child in your care and the feeling of satisfaction and achievement is immense. The opportunity to help a young person who may up to now have had a life full of pain is a job worth doing. I know some people don’t like the term job in relation to being a foster carer, but it is a job. You will receive training, you will be tested and you will be paid. But they’re not the important aspects because you will be able to make a difference in the life of a child; a child who finds themself in care through no fault of their own; a child whose experience of family could be very different to your own. Children in the care system need all the same parenting, nurturing and love that birth children have, but often the first thing they need is a chance. Become a foster carer and give a child a chance because it just might be one of the best decisions you ever make.