Fostering Connections

Fostering Connections, delivered in partnership with National Children’s Bureau (NCB) offers training and support to help social work teams, working with young people in foster care, and their foster carers understand and use trauma-informed practices.

Supervising social workers (who assist foster carers) and social workers (who work directly with young people in foster care) receive joint training for five months. They also have ongoing access to a peer support network.

The training aims to enhance their knowledge and understanding of trauma and its impacts while also promoting consistent use of trauma-informed approaches and collaboration between these two roles.

As a legacy of our discontinued programme Under our Roof, which worked with care experienced young people, foster carers and social workers, Fostering Connections seeks to improve the stability of foster care placements.

Through this programme we support young people in foster care to form meaningful relationships with trusted adults, improve their mental health and reduce behavioural difficulties and their likelihood of becoming involved in violence.

Fostering Connections is funded by the Youth Endowment Fund as part of a larger target focused project co-funded with the Home Office, Trauma-informed practice and its impact on youth violence, to find out what difference trauma-informed practice has on keeping children safe from violence.

The Centre for Evidence and Implementation will provide external evaluation.

Fostering connections evaluation protocol (PDF link)