Parent and child
Parent and child fostering is where a young parent, who may be within the later stages of pregnancy or with a newborn, stays with a foster carer
This type of fostering is sometimes called parent and baby foster care. The foster carer shares parenting skills and provides guidance and support for the early stages of a baby's life.
You'll need to complete additional training to be a parent and child foster carer, which is not as common as short-term or long-term fostering.
What do parent and child foster carers do?
The primary focus of the foster carer is to help the parent and child to stay together as a family. Foster carers do this by helping with parenting tasks as well as supporting the parent in developing the necessary skills to care for their child on their own in the future.
Parent and child fostering is taking a step back, showing them how to parent and letting them learn because you can't take over. I've had very young parents who just needed a mum to kind of oversee things and make sure they understand routines and what they are doing, if they haven't had that themselves. Then I've had other parents that have had to be fully supervised. But if it works, then you've helped one parent and child to move on, live safely and stay together. With parent and child fostering you have hope that you've broken a cycle of family breakdowns.
Joanne
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