One of the well known IFA's in our region has done a large recruitment drive in our local area for foster carers.
Nothing unusual about that but what took me aback a bit was the IFA's opinion of the Local Authority fostering services. In the advert I saw the IFA promoted its own foster carer training as superior as it was delivered by independent experts and accredited. The advert actually said that this differed from the LA whose training was done in-house mostly by its own LA SW's so was mostly not accredited and not to the same standard.
The adverts also said that the support and availability offered by the LA SW's was poor compared to what this IFA could offer i.e. the IFA could offer 24 hour round the clock support by SW's who knew the fostered children and fostering families really well, that the IFA SW's were stable in their jobs and had small case loads so could give lots of time to the foster child and foster family. The inference was that LA SW's were overworked, did not stay in the job long so changed frequently and did not know the fostering families well nor the children in foster care and clocked off at 5pm. It was put a bit more politely than this but that was the general gist.
Do all IFA's have low opinions of Local Authority fostering services?
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50 replies
MyLadyAnita · 17/05/2014 22:33
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