A parent and child placement involves providing care to both a baby or young child alongside one or both their parents, usually on a short term basis.
Some parents need a little additional support, advice and some supervision while they develop their parenting skills. This could be due to their young age, concerns about their own self-care or wellbeing, living with learning or physical difficulties, requiring a place of safety, or simply that they don’t have any local family able to help.
Our parent & child arrangements enable the parent/s to remain the primary carer, and facilitate the family staying together rather than the child having to be placed alone.
Foster carers provide advice and support on childcare and providing a safe home environment, including feeding, bathing, safe handling, sleep routines, developing nurturing relationships and attachment, budgeting, cooking and healthy lifestyles. They will need a spare bedroom big enough to accommodate a bed and cot.
Placements will usually involve the mother and her baby, but they could also include the child’s father or an older child up to the age of two if a need has been identified when the child is a little older.
These placements can be intensive, and foster carers doing this work need good communication skills and the confidence to monitor and assess parenting potential.
In addition to the fostering allowance and a skills fee for each child or young person in their care, parent and child foster carers also receive a specialist fee for assessment based arrangements of £600-900 per week. Where the parent is not being cared for themselves, foster carers receive a weekly lodgings allowance of £200 per parent and they are expected to provide for themselves including food and clothing.
