As a newly approved foster carer, you may be looking for helpful resources to help you learn more about your new role. We’ve put together a list of informative websites and books that can help you learn more about your new role as a foster family.
If you’ve found a new resource which you’ve found helpful, please share them with us on our Facebook and Twitter accounts!

Learn more about fostering online
Fostering Bradford’s website: www.fosteringbradford.com
Our website is a great place to start - the Fostering Bradford website is filled with blogs, fostering stories and more information about life as a foster carer in the Bradford district.
You can also receive free impartial advice from Fosterline (www.fosterline.info).
All foster carers approved with Bradford Fostering are given membership with The Fostering Network (www.fostering.net), which is designed to ensure foster carers are protected, supported and connected in your vital role transforming children and young people’s lives.
Carers from the LGBT+ community are also provided with membership to New Family Social (www.newfamilysocial.org.uk)

Books recommendations for newly approved foster carers

Why Love Matters – How Affection Shapes A Baby’s Brain by Sue Gerhardt
This read helps you to understand how a mother’s self-care and experiences during pregnancy impacts on the unborn child’s brain development and emotional regulation.
Chapter 3 looks at the impact of stress on babies and children, including separation from their parents and carers. In addition, Chapter 9: ‘Repairing the damage’, gives an insight into how the work you can do as a carer, and the interventions that are offered to children, may or may not repair the damage suffered in their early months and years. However, there is a clear reminder that making a child feel loved and valued will go a very long way in their adulthood.

The Foster Parenting Toolbox: A Practical, Hands-On Approach To Parenting Children In Foster Care by Kim Phagan-Hansel
Over 100 foster parents, case workers, social workers, and judges contributed to this book to help foster carers understand and work better with the children who are entrusted to their care. The book covers topics from new-borns to teens and everything in between.

The Simple Guide To Child Trauma (Simple Guides) by Betsy de Thierry
This book is helpful as a starting point, particularly for brand new carers, on understanding how to support a child who has experienced trauma. It gives helpful advice around understanding how a child’s trauma has affected their behaviour with a therapeutic parenting type approach.

Foster Parenting: A Basic Guide To Creating A Loving, Comforting And Stable Home by Linda Siegmund (2014)
This book provides you with information of Linda’s experiences of fostering eight children over the lifetime of her marriage, with tips on how to prepare yourself, how to make the child’s transition into your life as easy as possible and how to best approach their stay with you.

A Child’s Journey Through Placement by Vera Fahlberg (1994)
Separation, loss, grief and change are expected parts of the experience of children in placement. How do those charged with the responsibility of planning for these children address their needs? This reference book contains the theoretical knowledge base and skills necessary for understanding, working with and planning for children and their families.

Everyday Parenting With Security And Love: Using PACE To Provide Foundations For Attachment by Kim Golding
Children who have experienced trauma, loss or separation early in life need more than just special care and attention; they need to be parented with love and security in a way that allows them to heal and rebuild emotional bonds. This comprehensive book provides parents and carers with crucial advice and guidance on how to strengthen attachment and trust.
Based on Dan Hughes' proven 'PACE' model of therapeutic parenting, this book explains how to implement PACE (Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity & Empathy) techniques to overcome the challenges faced by children who struggle to connect emotionally.
Barriers to stable relationships such as a lack of trust, fear of emotional intimacy, and high levels of shame are all explained. It explores techniques to overcome these barriers by teaching how to support the child's behaviour at the same time as building empathy and trust. The practical parenting guidance offered throughout is essential for carers or parents of troubled children, and will help build safe, secure emotional relationships.

If you would like more information about fostering, please contact us today.
If you are not currently a foster carer, or foster with another fostering agency, please download our information pack or book a call back with our friendly team to learn more about your options with Bradford Council.

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