I have been with the team since November 2017. I have been married for 6 years to my husband Lee and together we have our two boys; Callum who is a very cheeky two year old and Bastille our family dog who will be 6 this year! As some of you already know I have been a foster carer and went on to adopt our little boy so have been through the same ruelling assessments as you all! Prior to working at fostering solutions I worked within the sure start children’s centre for 8 years in many different roles, including family support worker, children’s worker and children’s centre manager. During this time I worked with families who were on a child protection plan, child in need or those that needed a specific piece of work around parenting. After Callum came into our lives I decided that I wanted to do something different to support children and having the experience of fostering and adopting led me to this role
What is a carer engagement officer?
As you know we are always looking for new foster carers to join our fostering family and my role is to plan and attend events to raise awareness of this– this may be going along to a summer fayre, meet up at costa coffee or being a market trader for the day! As foster carers we also know that you are a great judge of character on who would make a good foster carer – therefore we love a carer referral! My role would be to make contact with the enquirer and find out more about them and to support them into their fostering journey. Don’t forget that under the new ‘recommend us’ scheme you can earn £1500 for each referral that goes on to be approved at panel!
This part of my role is to continue to support not only new carers but ALL of our carers. This may be with a yoga session, lunch out or providing extra support groups in your local areas. When I started my role I also started a new scheme called ‘ every day hero’. Each month we will award at least one of our fostering households the award of everyday hero. This is just a little thank you for what you do in our role as foster carers. I am also the face behind our Facebook page – thank you to all those that like and engage on our page.