The Acorns fostering service operates a therapeutic parenting model to meet the needs of the children and young people in our care, directed by our consultant clinical psychologist. We continually search for innovative ways to improve outcomes for our children and young people and provide excellent training opportunities and support services for our foster families to empower them in their daily practice.

We place the child at the centre of everything we do and recruit foster families who have the emotional and physical capacity to meet the needs of our children and young people without compromising their own familial relationships.

We acknowledge the inevitability of change and recognise individual strengths and limitations and promote a company-wide culture of innovation, embracing change as an opportunity to improve what we do.

The Acorns Fostering Service works with children and young people aged 0 – 17 and young adults aged 18 plus who may wish to remain with their foster families under a “staying put” arrangement. Any child who has been removed from their family will have suffered grief, loss and bereavement regardless of the circumstances in which they were removed. A therapeutic assessment of their emotional wellbeing is undertaken once they have been with us for 3 months and if it is intended that they will remain with the foster family in the longer term. This is then continually monitored in response to life events, further trauma or changing needs. Dependent upon their assessed needs, our consultant clinical psychologist will draw up a therapeutic plan in consultation with our supervising social worker and the foster family to provide guidance and advice in managing presenting behaviours.

Placement stability is key and our aim is that when a child moves into an Acorns family, it will be their final move within the care system so additional support is provided to foster families such as increased supervision, assistance with contact and specialised training. We recruit foster carers from the local area and areas where the Local Authorities that we work with prefer to place their children and we seek to reflect the demographic of our children and young people in our foster families. We have a robust matching process and we work hard with our Local Authorities to meet the changing needs of our children and young people throughout the term of their time with our families. Like to know more about Fostering with the Acorns? Then get in touch today.