What we do

Short-break care

Caring for any child is hard work, and most parents look forward to a break now and again. This may take the form of a night out, a weekend away, or more time with other family members. Parents of a child with a disability may find it more difficult to get a break. They need to feel confident that their child’s special needs are being met, and that the child is benefiting from the time spent away from them.

Short-break care gives the child a chance to be with other people, to widen their social circle, and to join in the activities of another family.

Usually the child goes to stay in the carer's home for an average of one weekend a month.

Full-time care

Barnardo's Home from Home project recruits full-time carers for children with or affected by disability, who, for a variety of reasons, cannot live with their own families.

This could be as a result of a short-term crisis, for example, their parent becomes ill, or because parents are struggling to cope, and the child needs another family for a few weeks or months. Caring for a child full time is hard work, but foster carers receive support from the project and from other carers. With time-limited fostering, the plan for children is either for them to move back home, or to move on to a more long-term family. Carers may work with the child’s family, or other foster carers, helping the child to understand what has happened to them and encouraging them to move on.

'Full-time caring is really satisfying. I have got to know some young people in great depth. Although in full-time caring the child’s problems become your problems, there is satisfaction in knowing you can make a sustained, positive contribution to resolving them'. (a carer)

Permanency

Sometimes children are not able to return to their birth families, and they need another family who will care for them permanently. The child is like a member of the carer’s own family, and the family have the satisfaction of seeing the child develop in to adulthood.

Some children have complex needs and they need a carer to be home based. For these children we recruit salaried, full-time specialist carers, who can then be available to respond to the needs of the child.