Fostering and Family Based Care (FFBC) guide for professionals

Where will we find the (foster) families for our children?

Generally, searches use the following sources and in the following order to identify a suitable family for children.

1. Trust internally approved (‘mainstream’) foster carers available with a vacancy.
2. Trust internally approved (Step Down) carers; approved or in assessment.
3. Externally approved carers from Independent Fostering Agencies.
4. Recruit as foster carers professionals known to the young person

How is FFBC relevant for reunification or move to birth family (connected persons or other arrangements) cases?

The BERRI questionnaire is an evidence based tool that helps us to understand children’s needs more fully, and the associated advice and guidance from BERRI can be extremely useful. The BERRI assessment could be undertaken simultaneously with the Schedule 3 / assessment on wider family members.  It can assist the care planners (social work team) to understand what parenting style, skills and understanding the caregiver needs to meet the child’s needs. It can also assist in transition and post-transition support planning for the caregiver.

Can anything be done if the child is living in residential and is not yet ready / stable enough to move?

Whilst it is likely not be viable to start any family finding and active searches, the BERRI questionnaire and resulting reports and advice are still likely to be helpful in gaining a deeper understanding of the child’s needs, considering whether the existing support plan, approach or any interventions in place are meeting needs. BERRI is designed to be used and repeated over time, to consider the child’s needs and measure change, consider patterns and triggers.