What we do
Barnardo’s Family Placement Unit recruits, trains and supports adopters and foster carers from all over the North East. We have a great deal of experience in finding families to care for children from a variety of backgrounds, and pride ourselves on the support and stability our carers and young people have.
Thinking about fostering?
It takes several months to become a foster carer and we will work closely with you to find out what type of fostering you are best suited to. There are many types of fostering, through Barnardo’s you will be trained and supported to provide excellent care that fits with your family circumstances. Fostering opportunities available include:
- Befriending – could you regularly spend a few hours with a disabled young person, enjoying new activities in the community?
- Short break care – do you want to care for a child/young person for a day/overnight or a few days? You can help keep children and families together by giving them some time apart.
- Temporary fostering – are you interested in looking after children for a few weeks, months or years? Our family placement service carers support children for as long as they need it, and help them to move on.
- Permanent fostering – would you like to welcome a young person into your family for the long term? Permanent foster carers care for children through to adulthood, giving them all the support they need.
Thinking about adoption
The process of becoming an adopter takes several months. After your first home visit and preparation training, a Barnardo’s New Families social worker will visit you regularly and get to know you and your family. When you adopt with Barnardo’s you can expect specialist social work support throughout the assessment and approval process and after adoption for as long as you need it.
Barnardo’s New Families service is not tied to geographical boundaries and can seek links with children from all over the UK, this gives you more opportunities to be matched with the right child.
We also have an adopters charter which explains what you can expect from us and our expert team can provide you with all the information and support that you need.
Who are the children?
We need foster carers and adopters for children of all ages, mainly up to age 16. Our Barnardo’s disability service provides befriending, support and longer term care for young people up to age 25. We also have a black emphasis service which recruits and trains adopters and foster carers for black, minority ethnic and mixed parentage children. There are many of these children within the care system and black, minority ethnic and mixed parentage people are best able to meet their needs.
We also have a Black Emphasis scheme that provides a range of support services sensitive to the cultural needs of black/minority ethnic children and young people. This includes the provision of approved adopters and foster carers as well as assessment, advocacy support and consultancy services to black/minority ethnic children and families and social work teams.
Many of the children we provide care for are considered “harder to place”. This means that they may have emotional or behavioural difficulties, some have a physical or learning disability or an illness which limits their life. We also need carers for groups of brothers and sisters who need to stay together, so families who could care for two or more children are very welcome. Some children are particularly vulnerable because of the neglect or abuse they have experienced, they need to be an only child within a family and receive intensive support and therapy. Barnardo’s Genesis Foster Carers are specially trained to provide this sort of care.
