THEY say looking after kids is a full-time job, but now being a foster carer can be a real career opportunity.
That’s the message from a new fostering service launched by the Kibble Education and Care Centre, in Paisley, Scotland - the UK’s largest multi-service centre working with children at risk – as they tackle the shortage of foster carers.
The Kibble’s Intensive Fostering Service offers professional fees to foster carers of between £23,500 up to almost £25,000 per annum, either £8,625 or £10,715 age related maintenance allowance per annum, up to 28 days paid respite a year and the chance to train for a nationally recognised social care qualification in a bid to alleviate the shortage of foster carers.
Foster carers will also have the satisfaction of knowing they will have helped steer a previously troubled or troublesome boy along the straight and narrow into adulthood.
This Kibble fostering service is unique, as not only is foster care organised, but the boys - between the ages of 12 and 18 - will also go to school at Kibble and the care centre can also organise leisure activities for them. Prospective foster carers will need at least three-years - experience in foster care or relevant childcare experience working in areas such as education, health, community or youth work.
Foster carers will have to live within a 25-mile radius of Kibble so the boy placed with their family can attend school there every day. The household will need to have a separate bedroom for the young person and their own children will have to be older than the boy being looked after.
Project manager Kay Gibson said: “We are looking for people to become foster carers who have a breadth of experience working with adolescents, but not necessarily having been a foster carer before. “Being a professional foster carer is a positive career choice. There are teachers, nurses and social workers that have become foster carers.
“They had originally come into their former careers to make a positive contribution to the lives of young people, but the systems they previously worked in did not allow them to make as much of a positive difference as they had hoped.
“Working one to one as a foster carer gives people the chance to make that positive difference.
Kay continued: “There’s also a generous income from the foster carer fees and realistic maintenance allowances to cover the costs of caring for a young person. And because there is a shortage of foster carers, the Government has given a generous tax allowance to encourage people to become carers and a large proportion of the foster carer fee and maintenance allowances are not subject to tax.
“The fees are equivalent to the top three salary grades paid to residential care workers at Kibble and foster carers are now recognised as professional self-employed workers. There’s also the opportunity within this project for carers to have access to training which can lead to an SVQ Level 3 or HNC qualification in social care.”
Kay added: “Our project will give carers a generous financial package, training, qualifications, support and job satisfaction.”
The boys who will be placed in foster care may have come from a disruptive family background and been unable to fit into mainstream schooling.
Kay explains: “These boys will need clear boundaries and the care and support they may have missed in their earlier years.”
“The young people who are going to be fostered are yesterday’s vulnerable children. They are not cute kids any more they are teenagers with an attitude.”
“They, more than anyone, need someone to offer them a family experience, which will help them become the responsible adults of tomorrow. “They need a good family experience to enable them to learn about the give and take of family life, how to share, be self-disciplined and take responsibility for themselves. They need positive family role models from their own communities. While many other fostering services care for youngsters up to the age of 16, Kibble’s Intensive Fostering Service will work with boys up to the age of 18.”
Kay added: “We are providing a realistic alternative to residential school care for these young people. With the addition of this new service to Kibble we are able to provide a continuum of care being able to meet the needs of young people at all times and in all circumstances.”
For an information pack and more details about the Intensive Fostering Service please complete the enquiry form on-line at www.kibblefostering.org or phone 0141 889 0044.