Fostering with Five Rivers
Highly trained and well supported Foster Carers target the emotional and developmental needs of children in specialist foster placements
Fostering Services have undergone many changes in the last twenty years, children and young people previously thought unable to be fostered are now placed, are doing well and flourishing within foster care.
The search still goes on for foster placements for ever more difficult children and young people to give them an opportunity for a positive family experience. In order to ensure the development of a successful fostering service, our aim is to provide a professional child care service from within a family base.
Our foster care service places emphasis on the individual child’s requirement for long-term well-being supporting and targeting the emotional and developmental needs of children in highly supportive foster placements.
Our Foster Carers are regarded as professionals in their integrity, level of skills, commitment and their philosophy of providing ‘alternative family’ care for children and young people. Five Rivers operates on the principle that Foster Carers are our colleagues and fellow professionals working in the field of child care, and as such remunerate them accordingly. Our high expectations of Foster Carers are equally the same as for all professionals involved in child care.
Five Rivers also shares all the information that it has with Foster Carers with whom we work, so that they can be professional and informed in their decision-making process. Five Rivers is committed to involve other agencies, young people and their families in a consultation manner. The fostering service has also developed strategies and systems that are linked to providing successful outcomes for young people based on our integrated care planning framework.
Five Rivers provides a comprehensive range of:
- Foster Care
- Therapeutic Fostering
- Parent and child assessments
- Solo fostering placements
- Emergency foster placements
- Fostering respite / bridging placements
These services are delivered across 13 regions throughout England and Ireland.
Foster Carers at Five Rivers have access to a range of specialist support staff, including Psychotherapists, Clinical Psychologists and Psychiatrists where needed who provide training in:
- Child Development
- Attachment Theory
- Family Therapy
- Therapeutic Parenting
- Crisis Intervention
- Transactional Analysis
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
We seek to ensure a high-level of skill and insight in our Foster Carers, teaching them how to create safe, effective therapeutic environments in which abused and damaged children and young people can have the opportunity to grow, develop and transform their lives.
At Five Rivers we are able to provide direct group work attachment psychotherapy with the child and Foster Carers. Where necessary we can also provide counselling and play therapy from qualified experienced practitioners. Each referral is subject to a thorough matching review, ensuring that the most suitable Foster Carer is found for each young person.