Initial Home Visit

[mothercluckerr]

Hey all,

This is my first post, though I have been reading all of yours for some time. Tonight we are having our first home visit from the foster care recruitment lady, she has advised it will be quite 'in depth but informal'. Not really sure what to expect! Does anyone already foster and have any advice on what to expect?

I have DS 4 and DSS who is 14, both of whom are really interested and excited in the prospect of fostering! We are looking to foster 2-9 year olds initially, as DS is still young himself. Does anyone have any advice on fostering with a young family?

Looking forward to hearing from you all! x

If anyone is interested, it went fine!
She stayed for around 2 hours 30 mins.
She asked us questions like what we think we could bring to a foster child's life, what we would do if a child stole from us, how we would manage behaviour, what experience we have with children (I'm a nursery teacher and we are both parents!). Then they asked us around 30 mins worth of questions about our pets!
DS (4) came home half way through and she asked him questions about what he knows about fostering.
Finally she took a walk around the house, checked how secure the garden was, checked in all our cupboards too.

We will find out by tuesday if we can book onto the fostering training. Fingers crossed!

Good luck! Thanks for updating. We are going forward to foster in the spring so we have a bit of time to get everything sorted before the initial visit.

Did your house have to be baby proofed before the visit? Was there anything she wanted you to change about the house before you go to training?
We had our old house fully baby proofed, but we moved last year and haven't done this one as our kids are older now.
Can I ask how your garden is enclosed? Ours has hedging around 2 of the 4 sides, a fence on one side and a fence on the road facing side, and I'm wondering if they'll be happy enough with that or want fencing all around. My kids haven't escaped from the garden so I do think it's pretty secure, although they could probably force their way through the hedges if they really wanted to.
What pets do you have and what questions did she ask you about them? So

Thanks!

It's not baby proofed yet, we are in the process of having our kitchen done!! She asked us questions about what precautions we would take so we spoke about stair gates and locks on cupboards etc. Our LA also offer a free safeguarding check and advice visit for your home plus a fire safety check, which I thought was nice.
Re the garden, she checked the shed had a lock and that the garden gate lock was high up. Ours is just all fenced in.
Having spoken to her, our fostering age bracket is going to be higher than we had originally thought we would go (we are hoping to be approved for 4+, will put our cap at 10 for the moment).

We have a bulldog and a cat, she asked what their temperaments are like and if the dog follows basic commands. Asked it they were neutered, wormed, flead etc..

What ages are you thinking of fostering?

At the moment we think 0 - 4 and primary schools aged kids would suit best, but we are pretty flexible.