Who are Alliance Foster Care?

Alliance Foster Care is always looking for kind-hearted and understanding people to join our fostering family in Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, Luton, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, Peterborough and Cambridgeshire. We currently have more than 60 foster carers and 90 foster children.

We offer a variety of different placements, ranging from short-term foster care (lasting for a few days to a couple of years) through to refugee and unaccompanied children and young people. This emphasises our dedication to ensuring that children of all backgrounds are given the opportunities in life that they are entitled to.

Alliance Foster Care’s unwavering support to foster carers and the children we care for has seen us inspire brighter futures for many years. We have been rated OUTSTANDING by Ofsted in our last Inspection in 2017.

“Supporting our carers is very important to us. If any of them experience problems, we do everything we can to support them. We provide an out of hours support service, a daily duty system as well as longer term advice, support and training. We pride ourselves on a professional and personal service.”

Alison Miller Registered Manager

Our foster carers can claim a wide range of perks and benefits, like free membership to The Fostering Network, Max Cards,high street discounts, invitations to family activities and events, and much more.

Alliance Foster Care’s approach

Our  team is committed to helping you provide the highest possible standards of care to foster children and young people, as well as offering the best possible support to our dedicated team of foster carers and families. 

Support and training

Foster families are visited at least every four weeks by their allocated supervising social worker (SSW) and receive additional phone or email support whenever they need it. An SSW is available to respond to enquiries out of hours, with back-up from one of the managers.

Our continued provision of high-quality foster care is made possible by working closely with our passionate foster carers. We guide them through personal training plans and encourage attendance of local support groups including those found in Corby, Northampton, Bedford, Peterborough and Cambridge. We also offer online support groups and training which Foster Carers can access from the comfort of their own home. Foster carer buddies are allocated to anyone who wants them, providing informal local support. 

We help our foster carers provide children in their care with the best chance of learning coping strategies and adapting to life after a traumatic past. Access to therapeutic services represents an increasingly important part of the ‘wraparound’ care service we offer foster children who have been through periods of trauma or neglect in the past. 

This is made possible through a psychotherapist who delivers direct consultations for our foster carers when they want to help improve a child’s emotional wellbeing. The psychotherapist also delivers regular training to our foster carers, with an emphasis on trauma and attachment issues.

“Every month, we name one carer as an Everyday Hero and present them with a voucher and certificate. There are also Little Heroes awards for the children and young people. We want them all to know how much we value them.”

Alison Miller, Registered Manager

Events and engagement

Alliance has lots of groups and events for carers. These range from weekly Coffee and Catch-Up sessions, spring and summer events through to Christmas parties and award ceremonies. 

Two family support workers organise a whole range of events, from a Youth Councils, Virtual Storytime through to the Independence Project for 14-18-year olds, which provides vital life skills such as first aid, basic food hygiene and wellbeing. 

At the Youth Council, we listen to children’s views and obtain feedback in order to shape how we deliver support to our carers and children. In addition, a foster carer committee holds bi-monthly meetings to discuss all aspects of the business, from events to recruitment and the foster carers support the development of the service.  

Our values

• In every aspect of the work we do to support foster carers, children and young people, we hold the values of respect, reliability, honesty and transparency. The children are at the heart of the agency. 
• Alliance combines the personal feel of a small agency, where support, training and events are local to our foster carers together with utilising the benefits of being part of a large group with amazing resources, such as the online virtual school and Schemes, such as Duke of Edinburgh Award and Young Explorers. 
• We highly value our foster carers, children and young people and respect diversity in all its forms. We welcome foster carers from a diverse range of backgrounds, which reflects the children who need a fostering family. We have a diversity steering children’s group who seek to ensure that all children within the agency value diversity. 
• Alliance is passionate about helping children and young people to reach their potential.