We are a friendly, family-focused agency based in Winchester, covering the central part of southern England including Dorset, Hampshire, Surrey and Oxfordshire, up to Gloucestershire and Northamptonshire. Fostering Solutions South currently works with more than 60 foster carers and over 80 foster children.
Address
Suite 3 - Poles Copse
Poles Lane
Otterbourne
Winchester
SO21 2DZ
Phone number
01962 715511
General email
[email protected]
Opening Hours
Fostering Solutions South places a great deal of emphasis on the matching process to ensure that children who need foster homes and the families who offer these are a good match. We believe this is why the majority of children remain with their foster families long-term.
Our focus is on really getting to know people and supporting them throughout the process. Despite its growing size, the agency remains friendly and approachable. A recent influx of new staff has brought fresh, creative ideas and processes to the agency, which we welcome.
I am proud to be a part of an agency and organisation that prioritises the needs of our children and young people. Our fostering families provide high quality care to support our children and young people. We support them to ensure they help children feel safe and secure, giving them opportunities to achieve and flourish.
Our team work hard at ensuring they know all our fostering families and young people as well as they can to offer individualised and tailored support to meet their needs
Sophie Jack, Registered Manager
We are keen for foster families to feel valued, included and involved. We work to create a strong sense of community, with 24/7 support, a buddy system to support all new foster carers, a comprehensive induction process and extensive training.
Regular social events are held throughout the year for foster carers and children, including Christmas parties, picnics and trips out. Both foster children and birth children of our foster carers can participate in the Duke of Edinburgh awards.
Fostering Solutions South believes that stability is crucial for foster children as this provides a solid base for them to be able to grow and fulfil their potential. For this reason, we focus on doing whatever we can to support foster families to provide a stable, long-term home for looked after children.
We are particularly keen to encourage diversity as we believe that having a wide variety of different types of carers enables us to match different children’s needs more precisely. Our message is “we are open to all” and everyone is valued. In particular, we are keen to hear everyone’s voice. Both children and foster carers are encouraged to express themselves through a variety of methods and different opinions are respected and listened to.
Any issues that arise are dealt with openness and transparency, using approved processes and procedures. Our aim is to solve any problems quickly in the most supportive and pragmatic way. We believe that we’re all here for the same reason – to support children and so we expect a high level of service from staff and support foster carers to give their best, too.
Fostering Solutions South appreciates functioning as an independent agency within the wider support of the National Fostering Group. We believe this offers the best of both worlds to foster carers and children, with the support of a larger agency coupled with the familiarity of a local agency. The fostering journey never stops, which is why support is offered to people at every stage, including experienced carers.