If Blue Sky Fostering Was A Cake

When it comes to Blue Sky Fostering, they don’t just have family Social Workers, they have many different teams that keep things running smoothly. Imagine Blue Sky is a cake, we all know the main ingredients that go into a cake and what important roles they play.

Marketing and Recruitment

There are more children in the system than there are Foster Carers. Marketing help by working on the website and lots of other places to spread the word about Blue Sky Fostering and get more people wanting to foster. They keep the website up-to-date with the right information, so people looking into fostering know what they can expect. Recruitment support people through the process to become a Foster Carer.

Marketing is the eggs that help bond the ingredients and Recruitment is the flour that brings everyone together, without you guys the cake would just not work, you need those main ingredients otherwise things start to fall apart.

Placements

There is a special department that works in Blue Sky and their main focus is placing a child who is in the care system. They will analyse the child’s case file and then they will go through the database and try to find the best possible Foster Carers, they do this by looking at the child’s needs and location, and look at the training the Foster Carer has done and their past experience. This just means the children get the best outcome. The Placements Team work so hard taking a range of emails and phone calls every day just trying to make sure every child is in the correct home.

Placements - you are the raising agent in the cake. Without you, the cake would not rise meaning that the children rise to their full potential if they are placed in the right home.

Social Workers

After Marketing, Recruitment and Placements, that is where Social Workers come into the story. They will work with a Foster Carer when they have been given a child to look after. They will come out on a regular basis to support the Foster Carer and answer any questions they might have. The Social Worker is there to take a load off of the Foster Carer, to make sure they know they always someone they can talk to if they feel they need it. But also the Social Worker is there to check that things in the home are going well and the Foster Carer is doing their job correctly.

Sadly the Social Worker will have to see some tough things while they’re working and have to learn how to not let their emotions get the better of them.

So Social Workers after reading what I have to say about your part in Blue Sky, I hope this spreads some light on the situation. You are a very important factor in this whole cake. Let’s say you are the cake tray, without you, everything else just won’t work, you are needed there for the support while the cake is cooking, and Foster Carer is the cooker, so just remember this when you think ‘what does my job mean to the company, carers and children?'.

Training and Participation

The Training and Participation Team run group workshops based on certain topics such as teenage development, how to handle self-harm/depression, how to encourage homework, plus activities for the children and much more. Their role is important because they teach Foster Carers how to become parents to foster children and make sure they know how to handle certain situations.

Something I heard my own mother say growing up, ‘if a baby came with a manual life would be so much simpler’ and that is what the Training and Participation are. You guys are the recipe that every new foster parent needs. Your job is so important not just to Foster Carers but to the young people as well because having someone who understands you when you're going through a tricky situation in your life, makes it that little bit easier.