Why foster for Dorset?

We support our foster carers

You'll join a team of professionals working with you and the child to ensure everyone's wellbeing.

This includes:

• your own fostering social worker to advise and support you
• the child's social worker
• a fostering duty worker to support you if you need it when your social worker is away
• an out-of-hours support service
• health practitioners
• educational staff
• access to specialist psychologists
• a youth service that supports children in care
• access to regular, tailored support groups
• membership of Dorset's Foster Carers Forum 
• free membership of FosterTalk
• counselling helpline Fosterline
• social activities 
• foster carers' awards evening
• support for foster carer's own children

Find out more about the needs of looked after children.

Post-approval learning and development

Learning and development are an integral part of fostering.

Before you begin fostering, we will offer you an induction to prepare you for your role. You'll start with the training and development standards which set out what you should know and be able to do within the first 12 to 18 months of foster caring. 

We offer foster carers a free programme of learning and development from experts, training courses, learning on-line and other methods. These all help to develop skills and knowledge to equip you to keep children safe. 

We care about fostering

In Dorset, we strive to provide the best service for children in care, foster carers and their families. We do this by:

• placing children and young people locally to give them stability
• supporting children to remain in their communities while in foster care
• prioritising our own approved foster carers, talking to them first
• recognising and rewarding foster carers as professionals
• providing training to foster carers at local venues
• offering support to our carers before they start fostering and throughout their fostering time
• providing opportunities to meet regularly with other foster carers who live nearby, forming a strong support network

Fostering with Dorset means you're more likely to be able to care for a child sooner than if you foster through an independent fostering agency. 

By choosing to foster for your local authority, you make sure all the council's relevant financial resources go into supporting Dorset's children.

Next steps to becoming a foster carer

Find out more about what happens next to become a foster carer in Dorset.