Open University course will take foster care to new levels

Three Scottish foster carers are among the first in the UK to take advantage of a new training course which promises to help professionalise their role and improve the care they provide for some of the country’s most disadvantaged children.

The traditional image of foster carers, as earth mother types who take children under their wing in large chaotic families has long been outdated. Nowadays foster care is closer to being a profession.

Although policies vary across Scotland, local authorities increasingly pay much more significant incomes to foster parents. Whether foster parents are salaried, or receive a fee, or some form of expenses, remuneration has become a much more clear and realistic reflection of the commitment and costs involved in taking often troubled youngsters on.

In return, they increasingly require a greater level of commitment, including ongoing training, from those who opt to foster.

On a daily basis foster carers are required to provide support and stability for children from troubled backgrounds and to help them get their lives on track. They also need to be able to understand and navigate the care process, and work with those involved in it.

Now a new health and social care programme developed and delivered by The Open University has been specifically designed to give those working in all areas of fostering the insight and knowledge they need to carry out all aspects of their role effectively.

In Scotland, the OU is piloting the qualification in partnership with SWIIS Foster Care (Scotland).

SWIIS is a not-for-profit organisation that provides foster care placements for children and young people, very often those whom local authorities find the most difficult to place, or who have already had a number of failed placements.

The programme is unusual in that students combine both a vocational and an academic strand to gain practical skills backed by a solid knowledge base. As it is an OU course, the learning can be carried out on a flexible, part-time basis.

For the academic side of the programme, foster carers are working towards a Certificate in Health and Social Care by studying An introduction to health and social care, a broad practical course about the nature of modern caring.

The course is designed to take them into the lives of care workers and care service users through in-depth case studies, an interactive DVD, and with activities to help them draw on their own experiences. Learners will be supported by a personal tutor and take part in face-to-face tutorials and share ideas with other students through online forums.

For the vocational side of the programme, the foster carers are working towards a full NVQ Level 3 Health and Social Care. Areas they will cover include how to support children and young people to develop supportive relationships, and how to prevent or manage challenging behaviour.

While there is no requirement at the moment for foster carers to hold specific professional qualifications, as part of the ongoing process of improving standards of delivery in the social care sector it is possible this may change in the future.

The Open University and SWIIS both believe it is likely that foster carers will be required to have a minimum qualification in the future, potentially using the HNC in Social Care as a base. They therefore believe the programme will put foster carers in a good position for the future.

Sue Dumbleton, staff tutor in Health & Social Care at The Open University in Scotland says the approach of combining academic and vocational learning offers significant benefits: “It is not only cost effective, it makes best use of study time and the written materials that learners produce. It is anticipated that most learners will be able to successfully complete the entire programme in significantly less time than it would normally take to do both elements separately. Studying part time with the OU also gives the carers the flexibility they need to study at times and in places which suit them rather than having to attend classes at college.”

Dundee teacher Jessica McLaren, has been on the course since February. She said the attractions were the ability to study at her own pace and at the times she chooses, as well as finding out as much as possible about fostering. “I’m the kind of person that if I’m doing something new I like to immerse myself in it,” she says. “It is good to have foster care experience and a teaching background. It should leave me a number of options in the education field in the future.”

She adds. “I’m also hoping it will help me address my foster child Ricky’s needs as he gets older – helping me have more answers as he has questions. I just want to be prepared for things that happen in the future.”

“It’s also good that you can transfer 60 credit points from the course to a degree in social work, which is something I might go on to do in the future.”

Marie Young, from Castle Douglas is another of the Scots foster carers taking part in the new course. She feels it will help give her a better insight into what her three foster children have gone through.

She has two sons of her own and has taken on three siblings aged 10-14 on a long-term foster placement. “Now that the children have settled with us and are at school, I’ve got more time to devote to the course and so it seemed like a useful thing to do and a good time to do it,” she explains.

Young and her family currently manage a working farm in Dumfries and Galloway, but her fostering career is a leap from her previous roles working in the prison service and in a local authority library department.

“I’m hoping the course will open up my eyes to the problems the children have had and give me a better awareness of the difficulties that children face being fostered. Particularly the behavioural difficulties, what causes them and how we can help the children overcome them,” she says.

# Further information from the health and social care team at The Open University in Scotland on 0131 226 3851 or [email protected]

‘The main things you need are honesty and integrity’
Jessica McLaren, who is 25, is a foster carer to a six-year-old boy and provides respite care to other children. She lives in Dundee.

# How did you become a foster carer?
By accident. My mum and dad were foster carers and children they were fostering were coming to stay with me for respite weekends. I did that for about a year, including with children who weren’t staying with my parents. Then I was given a young person on an emergency placement which turned into a few days, then weeks and months. He has been here a year now; he became part of the family, and will be here permanently. We are still doing the respite care for other children, too.

# What did you do before?
I have been an English teacher for Dundee City Council since 2005, but my daughter was born six months ago and I’m currently on maternity leave. I hope to go back, but that could be tricky because the foster agency likes at least one of the parents to be a full-time foster carer.

# What qualifications do you need?
At present, none, but you are given quite rigorous training to be a respite foster carer, the same as is given to full-time foster carers. You have to fill out a detailed form and you have six months of visits from social workers who assess your lifestyle and background. There are training days and an assessment panel to get through before you can be approved. With the agency I work for (SWIIS), you are paid a weekly maintenance fee and a carer’s fee based on the number and age of children you have.

# What are the most important skills involved?
The main things you need are honesty and integrity. You need to be quite strong and non-judgmental, definitely, and very open. It depends a lot on your background whether you can deal with issues that might arise, and you need to be emotionally stable and able to support other people. It can be disruptive to your family life and you have to be careful who you agree to take.