Information on The Children's Family Trust for Local Authorities

The Children's Family Trust - picture of childern running Established in 1946 as a registered Charity, The Children's Family Trust is a voluntary, not-for-profit child-care agency. It has a long and enviable record in looking after children in care and always puts the child's interests foremost.

Currently we operate foster homes in the Midlands, North-East and in Sussex, as well as a Registered Children's Home in Wales. Our contact details are given below.

Because of the stability provided by the Trust in its traditional work in permanent and long-term fostering, specialising in sibling groups, we have helped children achieve a start in life often denied to others in care. The Trust has always been open to short-term placements, and the warmth and security offered by our families has been of benefit to these children too. Now the Trust has set itself the task of broadening its work to formally encompass short-term and other forms of care, and not just to concentrate primarily with permanent placements.

Our Carers are our strongest recommendation and the biggest asset of the Trust. We recognise their dedication and professionalism, providing as they do, the critical point of delivery of our work with children who may be insecure, unwanted, and abused. We are committed to finding, training and supporting the best Carers we can provide. We complement this with a professional team of social workers and specialists to help them work with each child to enable the children find their inner strengths and to achieve their potential.

In doing so, we offer Local Authorities a complete fostering service - not simply placement vacancies. Our work is characterised by the effort we make to offer each child the right placement and to succeed, the opportunity to grow emotionally and socially, as well as educationally. In particular we:

·	set a particularly high standard for entrants to our Carers team
·	provide training in, and familiarisation with what, professional caring means today
·	only use fully qualified and experienced social work staff
·	expect to visit each Carer a minimum of twice each month to provide full supervision support
·	develop Carers trust and self-confidence through working consistently with a regular long-term supervising social worker who becomes their caseworker
·	provide and insist upon on-going training and the development of our professional Carers skills and expertise
·	undertake a careful matching process to underpin the opportunities and potential we can offer children in need
·	provide NVQ level III Child Care qualified Carers
·	encourage our Carers to benefit from the wider support that participation in local carer networks can bring
·	work carefully on each child's care plan and educational needs
·	provide formal 24x7 telephone support from qualified staff
·	willingly maintain and support natural family relationships wherever appropriate
·	provide a 24x7 advice and support service for all children in our care so that they can raise issues and discuss feelings that they may initially find hard to do in their placement
·	provide therapeutic support where needed

Our service offering includes placement opportunities for -

·	permanent and long-term fostering
·	short-term, emergency and respite care
·	sibling groups
·	placement within our Residential Children's Home in Wales as well as with foster carers in England
·	children and young people of all ages
·	mothers and babies

To learn more about what we have to offer and our current vacancies and rates, please contact our Administration Manager, Carolyn Gumbley, on 01905 798229 or email us at enquiries@thecft.org.uk.
Carolyn can also send you a copy of our "Statement of Purpose".

Our Head Office and Midlands Region are based at:

MKA House, 4 – 6 St.Andrew’s Road, Droitwich, Worcs. WR9 8DN

tel 01905 798229 fax 01905 798230.

Our North-East Office is at:

Sedbury Hall Stables, Gilling West, Richmond, N. Yorkshire DL10 5LQ

tel 01748 826839 fax 01748 822472