The family placement team has launched a renewed appeal for folk who are interested in becoming a foster carer to vulnerable children and young people to get in touch.
Recent years have seen a rise in demand within Shetland, mirroring a growing number of children requiring foster care across Scotland, and there is an ongoing need to recruit more local fosterers.
There are 15 foster families in the islands at present providing various types of care, including long-term homes for children, short breaks, daytime outreach support and, in some cases, a mixture of all three.
We’ve been speaking to family placement team leaders Angela Leask and Elaine Guest to learn more about what’s involved and why many carers find fostering both challenging and hugely rewarding.
Anyone over the age of 21 who has a spare room, whether in a house they own, privately rented accommodation or social housing, could be suitable to become a foster carer. The team is looking for a range of full and part-time carers, with a great deal of flexibility – even if you can only spare one evening a month.
“The main thing is that they just want to look after the bairns,”
“A huge range of folk have been foster carers in Shetland over the years,” Angela says. “We’ve had families, we’ve had single carers, older people, younger ones as well – a whole range of different folk, and we need that as well.
“We have all different types of family scenarios and different care needs, so we would certainly consider anybody’s application.”
Children requiring care range from newborns up to people aged 18 and beyond – those in early adulthood who sometimes require “continuing care” into their early twenties.
“We have people that do full time care and we also have people who do respite, maybe just weekends or once a month, so we have a vast array of different lengths of time that people can do it,” Angela continues.
While in some instances specific skills learned through occupations including nursing, teaching and ASN will be important, people with no prior experience as a care-giver – including those who have not had children of their own – will be considered.
“The main thing is that they just want to look after the bairns,” Angela says, “and understand that bairns in their care will have some additional needs.
“They quite often come from homes that have not managed to provide all their care needs, they might have had a lack of nurture, poor attachment, so I suppose they need to be prepared for some challenges in the bairns’ behaviour.
Elaine says would-be foster carers also need to undergo a fairly lengthy assessment process, taking approximately six months, but “we’re there to guide them through it”.
“We’ve got a preparation course where we can speak a bit more about what fostering is about and what the process entails, how we can help, how the carers can help the children when they come into care and beyond that,” she explains.
“We are always in need of having foster carers available in case children need looking after away from their home. We are just looking to hear from anyone interested in fostering to do a variety of different things – full-time, part-time, alongside their work and other commitments.
In addition to support from family placement staff, existing foster carers will offer enthusiastic peer support, sharing their experience to help new carers.
“We’ve got a number of experienced carers who are really keen to provide advice. You’re never on your own being a foster carer, and some of the carers have become really good friends as well,” Elaine says.
She says the number of young folk requiring care can “vary greatly” from one time period to another, but “what I can say is that all of our foster carers are busy!”
“We are always in need of having foster carers available in case children need looking after away from their home,” Elaine adds. “We are just looking to hear from anyone interested in fostering to do a variety of different things – full-time, part-time, alongside their work and other commitments.”
If you'd like to find out more about becoming a Foster Carer in Shetland, sign up to receive email updates from the Family Placement team or visit our fostering campaign page for more information
