WELCOMING a child into your home can be a daunting task, but foster children may be the only ones who come with a manual.

Futures for Children, a Southend-based fostering agency, provides ongoing training, support and has even written a guide to help new carers.

The agency trains its 32 sets of foster carers in first aid, understanding behaviour, and what happens when they move on.

It has now been recognised as outstanding by Ofsted for its work to help children settle into their new homes, but also keep in touch with their families.

Kathy, a training co-ordinator for the agency and also a foster carer, said: "When you become a mother you won't have any experience.

"You probably go on the internet, read a lot of books, ask other mums, and ask your friends.

"With foster carers, in a way it's a lot easier, because they have social workers to ask and an ongoing training system.

"When you do your preparation training you talk about normal development, what children and babies should be doing at different ages, so they are probably more equipped."

Futures for Children was set up in Benfleet in 2000 and moved to the Southend offices in 2004, taking children in that have been referred from local authorities, either from care homes or because of emergency protection orders.

Manager Linda Folwell said: "Foster carers are becoming much more professional now and it's a really good time for foster carers to come on board because they are going to be nationally recognised."

The children are taken in from the local authority and then placed in either short-term, long-term or emergency placements.

They are carefully matched to a carer who then receives ongoing therapy and support.

Mrs Folwell believes matching children and carers is a delicate process and they do their best to place the many Bangladeshi or Kosovan children with people of similar backgrounds. She said there are also carers who are more suited to dealing with disabled children or troublesome teenagers.

Foster carers come from all walks of life. Some have worked in social care before, but others may be childless and have no previous experience. They all bring their own ideas of how to help some of the most damaged children across Southend.

Mrs Folwell explainedd: "Some people come into fostering and they base a lot of their parenting on how they brought up their own children.

"They may have made mistakes with their own kids and may try not to make the same mistakes again. If you haven't had children your experience of parenting is how you have been parented.

"I suppose you would try to take from that and eliminate the not so good bits."

But it can be very different from bringing up your own child. To cope with this, foster carers have to receive a certain level of training from the dedicated team at Futures for Children, which continues throughout the placement.

Mrs Folwell said: "If there are difficulties in the placement we offer them support and look at what we can do to alleviate the pressure of the placement."

So what is the quality which makes an ideal foster carer?

"Obviously a foster carer has to have the room in their house to accommodate a child, but they also need to be committed and dedicated," said Mrs Folwell.

"They need to have a good sense of humour. They need to love children and enjoy a challenge and have stickability - that is the one thing. They need to be so dedicated they wouldn't put the child out of their home. "

  • To find out more about Futures for Children call 01702 335932.

Giving something back

Kathy is the training co-ordinator at Futures for Children, but has also been a foster carer for 20 years.

She said: "It's about where you are in your life. I worked in a bank all my life and there came a point where I wanted to put something back.

"I was going into the City every day, doing this humdrum job, and I thought I had more to give."

She believes fostering is not a decision to be taken lightly, but it can change your life.

"I would never have not done it, but it enriched my life.

"Sometimes you don't realise it's enriching your life but it does," she laughed.

"Even with the bad days you can always take something from it.

"I'm not saying it's all wonderful, but generally the highs have been better than the lows."

Kathy says the challenge carries the best reward - the chance to send a well-rounded individual out into the world.