Fostering Connections
What is the Fostering Connections membership project?
Fostering Connections is a three-year membership project, funded by the Big Lottery, aimed at strengthening the supports within the foster care community, building stronger links among foster carers and highlighting the current issues facing the foster care service in Wales.
Storytelling and reading guide
The Fostering Connections membership project has produced a storytelling and reading guide containing tips and hints to get you started in telling stories and reading with your foster children.
The first section was written by professional storytellers with many years of experience telling stories to and with children. It was developed for The Fostering Network Wales by The George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling at the University of Glamorgan. Throughout the rest of the guide you will find useful resources including a story written by a foster carer; reading tips to help your foster child to read and a special section on how to encourage teenage boys to read.
Editor, Maria Boffey, said "Storytelling is widely recognised for its benefits for children including developing their creativity, imagination, listening and speaking skills, literacy, concentration and social skills. Beyond this it can be argued that listening to and telling stories gives children the essential skills to understand who they are and to imagine possible futures for themselves.
"I hope the guide will show that show that raising literacy levels is not just about formal education, but that there are activities that foster carers and their children can do together to encourage an enjoyment of reading."
Printed copies of the publication can be obtained from maria.boffey@fostering.net or downloaded as pdf files in English (694 KB)or Welsh (861 KB).
See the Events page for details of Telling my story on tour.
Practice forum Wales - good practice guide 2007
This guide, published by the Fostering Connections membership project, aims to promote good practice in fostering using case studies to highlight the practical ways in which social care stakeholders are using their resources to improve foster care.
The guide features case studies from practitioners, managers, and foster carers who have used innovative ways to improve their practice. For example, Carmarthenshire County Council discuss the ways they have improved their service by peer mentoring and better supporting the sons and daughters of foster carers. Caerphilly County Borough Council explain fostering from a male prospective while Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council talk about their specialist fostering scheme Foster Career +.
Download the good practice guide on pdf (0.3MB)