What Support Would You Get
If you become a carer with Oasis, you will receive a high-level of support from your personal social worker as well as access to our 24 hour, 365 days a year on call service. For a single child over 5 years old, you will receive an allowance of £380 per week.
You will get your own social worker
Carers will be allocated their own Supervising Social Worker whose role is to support the carer at all times and especially when times get tough. Your social worker will speak to you at least once a week, will visit you fortnightly and will conduct monthly supervision sessions. If there are any difficulties within the placement this contact will be more frequent – even daily – in order to provide advice and support.
The training process
Ongoing pre and post approval training will be held, with courses and training sessions every six weeks. Topics such as - Safer Surfing – the internet and child abuse, Dealing with disclosures, Understanding ADHD and Autistic Spectrum Disorders, Working with birth families, Understanding Self Harm etc.
You will be invited to attend Carer Support Groups where you can learn from other carers, sharing experiences and advice. Carers’ Support Groups will bring carers together in an informal yet structured setting on a monthly basis.
Financial Support
As Carers you will receive an allowance of around £380 per week. For children under 5 years of age the allowance is a little less. If there is a sibling group of say 2 or 3 children we have to offer the local authority a small discount and this discount is passed to the carers. This allowance is not subject to tax or counted as income for tax purposes. The allowance is to enable you to provide everything for the child that they would need, we ask no more of you than you provide for the child or young person as you would for one of your own children. The allowance is there to cover:
- General wear and tear caused by foster children within the home.
- Child’s pocket money.
- General clothing.
- Day care (This will only be after discussions with the agency and the authority).
- Birthday and Christmas presents.
- Leisure and other ‘out of school’ activities.
- Sports Equipment.
- Subscriptions to clubs (e.g. sports clubs/girl guides).
- School/College books, pens & paper.
- Annual holiday and school trips (school holidays may be negotiated).
- Transport to and from local School/College.
- All local mileage within a 40 mile round trip of the foster carer’s home to medical appointments, contract arrangements, outings and holiday activities.
Fostering Network and Foster Talk
At Oasis we believe in providing our carers with a support package that will enable them to survive the sometimes difficult times that foster carers can experience. Whilst we provide a high level of support from the agency, sometimes carers may need more.
Consequently carers will be made members of the Fostering Network and also have their subscriptions to Foster Talk paid by Oasis. These are national organisations that provide support, guidance and advice to carers, independent of whatever agency they work with. Foster Talk also provides :
* Free unlimited legal advice
* Accountancy advice which helps carers deal with all aspects of their Foster Care tax, national insurance, state benefits and fostering allowance
* Medical/First Aid Helpline
* Social Work support helpline - which provides confidential personal telephone support from qualified independent Social Workers
Respite
No matter how good a carer may be at looking after a child or young person, there may be a time when they need a break. Just imagine that you are looking after a young person who is lively and in your face for twenty five hours a day, there will be a time when you may feel that you need some time out. There is provision for carers with Oasis to have respite throughout the year.
Obviously change is difficult for everybody and even more so for young people who have had numerous moves on their short lives, so we do ask that any request for respite is done in a planned way and would not be detrimental or harmful to the child. If a child is moved on one of the first things they ask themselves is “why am I being moved on and who gets moved on”. Their experience may tell them that bad people get moved on and people you don’t like get moved on. These children are carrying enough baggage already so we do ask that respite is not taken lightly.