Why choose Evergreen Foster Care?
Our founders have extensive experience and knowledge of running children’s homes and special schools so we have the practical experience with equips ours foster carers with the advice and strategies they need to support the children.
With round the clock support, you’ll be introduced to a network of support including your own dedicated supervising social workers, support worker, therapists, and other foster carers, so you’ll never feel alone.
We understand how difficult it is to foster children who have social, emotional and/or mental health difficulties, and who may also have aspects of autistic spectrum condition, so foster carers receive a generous package.
Our aim is to provide fostering households that replicate the structure of a residential provision, with high levels of day-to-day therapeutic and behaviour management support. We recognise that being a foster carer to a child with a wide range of difficulties can be isolating, and at times, extremely challenging. To this end, we aim to provide a wider ‘family’ to ensure that our fostering families have regular planned ‘stayovers/ respite’. The stayover carers then become key figures in the children’s lives, which expands their support networks for life.
Our part-time ‘stayover’ carers collect children from their school on a Friday afternoon and take them back to their primary carers on a Sunday evening. They also offer overnight stays during school holidays. Our experience shows this has a positive effect on the wellbeing of, and long-term relationships between, our foster carers and our foster children.
Many children that are referred to Evergreen Foster Care have experienced a childhood fraught with difficulty. We therefore encourage every child and family to engage in regular group and individual therapy and support sessions, in addition to the therapeutic approach that underpins everyday life at Evergreen Foster Care.
Our qualified and experienced therapists assess the needs of a child placed in our foster care, provide individual, group and/or family therapy, and are dedicated to maintaining a consistent therapeutic approach through targeted carer support, group reflection and training in the home. Each child has a therapeutic plan which is reviewed regularly, providing direction for the child, family, therapists, and school staff. Evergreen Foster Care further harness a strengths-based approach which focuses on the person or child’s uniqueness and personal strengths. Our therapists will help our children and foster carers to utilize their skills personally and socially to grow through their own personalised therapeutic process.
We offer a robust and specialised training programme for our foster carers, which includes fortnightly support. Foster carers are also provided with access to their own online training platform that they can access any time, anywhere, and other independent memberships designed to support their learning and professional role.
Children age fourteen years and over are offered direct support with their preparation for independence, via the certified ASDAN programme. Children can learn useful skills like accessing employment, cooking skills and household tasks.
We minimise and simplify how our foster carers complete their administration via a mobile app. Daily records can be uploaded easily and viewed by their supervising social worker.
Our fostering families are supported with life-story and memory work.
Children are welcomed into their new home with a ‘Huggles’ cuddly bear and welcome gift bag. Our family support worker ensures children understand their rights and know how to complain.
You would be joining a therapeutic community with like-minded professionals. Access to ongoing training and development is central to what we do.