All children need basic food, clothing, shelter, love and safety. Children in foster care have the same needs and because of their life experiences may have additional needs.
Emotions around birth family contact
In most cases the best place for children to grow up is within their own families. Children only come to be looked after by the local authority when their parents cannot for a variety of reasons do this. Perhaps their parents have died or abandoned or abused their children, or perhaps the parents are temporarily ill in hospital or simply not coping with raising their child. Whatever the reason, children will be experiencing loss and grief and mixed emotions about not living with their parents, or having parents who can't look after them. This alone will add to the needs of a child looked after in foster care.
Social workers try very hard to keep families together. When this is not possible children often come temporarily to foster care. Work continues with the parents so that they can get themselves in a position to care for their own children. It is therefore vital that children in foster care maintain close contact with their own family. Foster carers are in a special position to help children keep in positive contact with their parents.
Children may be relieved to be away from an abusive parent, or they may wish more than anything to be reunited with their parents. In any case they will probably be confused about their situation. They may swing from being angry at themselves, believing they are to blame, to being angry at their parents. Foster carers can help to clarify the situation for a child and help them make sense of the turmoil of their feelings. Foster carers need to be sensitive and non-judgemental in their approach.
Behaviour
Children develop ways to cope with life. If life has presented them with situations and people who are abusive, they learn to cope. Sometimes they scream and yell, or run away, or hurt themselves, or hurt other people. Some of the strategies can remain, even when the situation changes. This can leave children with a range of behaviours that are not acceptable in many circumstances. Behaviour management (or discipline) needs to operate in the context of the overall care for a child.
Meeting Children's Needs
Children need to feel part of a community. Children from different ethnic backgrounds need to feel positive about their cultural and ethnic heritage. Children also experience racism, and may need help to deal with this. It is for these reasons that Waltham Forest believes that children should be placed as far as possible with carers who reflect their racial, ethnic, religious, cultural and linguistic needs. Where such a placement is not possible, additional training, support and information will be considered to enable the child to be provided with the best possible care and develop a positive understanding of their heritage.
Special Needs
Some children have special needs because of a learning difficulty or different physical ability. Their needs will depend on their specific condition. Caring for a child with a serious disability is often a demanding task. Parents and carers may need extra support. In many cases this will include respite care. Foster care is often a better option than residential care.
Contact Us
Fostering and Adoption Service
London Borough of Waltham Forest
1C The Drive
Walthamstow E17 3BN
Tel 020 8496 3000, or
Direct line to Adoption Service on 020 8496 1588
Direct line to Fostering Service on 020 8496 2479
