More About Fostering

There are many resources that you can utilise as a Foster Carer with Thurrock:

You will have a designated qualified social worker, a 'supervising social worker' from the team who will undertake your assessment and offer you regular support. We have a dedicated Emergency team offering out-of-hours response in an emergency plus our out-of-hours telephone support line that operates during evenings and weekends for general advice and support.

The Oaktree Centre is a resource centre dedicated to looked after children and their foster carers. We have a Nurse Specialist for Looked After Children and she is available to all foster carers for support and advice on a wide range of health issues. We have a Training Coordinator for looked after children whose job is to ensure that our foster carers and other people working within the service are equipped with the necessary skills to do the job.

Every child has their own individual Personal Education Plan (PEP), which is agreed with the social worker, carer, school and child to ensure their needs are met and difficulties are identified.

To help with the cost of keeping each child, you will be given a weekly allowance, which is dependent on the age of the child.

These are just some of the elements of the fostering service and I hope that this website gives you some insights into how we support and maintain our Carers.

Fostering is a local service and in order to foster for Thurrock you should ideally live within a 30-45 minute drive of the area. If you are unsure where Thurrock is, please select the following link to see a detailed map of the area. Map of Thurrock. If you do not live in or close to Thurrock but are still interested in fostering then please contact the fostering service for your local area - they will be pleased to hear from you. We hope this website will help you decide whether this is the path you want to pursue.

The leaflet is in PDF format. Adobe Acrobat Reader can be downloaded from the Adobe web site via the link below.: This is free software which enables you to view, navigate and print PDF files.

Find room in your life to foster a child? (PDF 1.3MB)