Safer caring

Many children in foster care have been ill-treated or abused by other adults, and as a result can show a range of challenging behaviour. When foster carers look after these children, they are taking certain risks with their own health, which can include “secondary traumatic stress” as they empathise with the children in their care. Safer caring involves assessing and managing the complex risks that face children, foster carers and their families.

This training course gives foster carers the knowledge they need to recognise secondary traumatic stress disorders, to help prevent them and to get the right treatment for them, to assess and manage risk and to work as part of a team to provide safe caring.

Who is this book for?

This course is designed to be carried out by fostering workers, for foster carers who are or who will be looking after troubled children.

What you will find in this book

This course consists of two interlinked modules – Caring for the carers: preventing and treating secondary traumatic stress disorders, and Protective foster care: managing risk and reducing vulnerability.

Subjects covered include:

• Recovery after post-traumatic stress
• Vulnerability and resilience
• Understanding, preventing and treating secondary traumatic stress disorders
• Understanding risk
• The impact of trauma on risk assessment
• Assessing and managing risks to the child, carers and agency

The accompanying CD-ROM contains PowerPoint slide presentations and handouts, designed to accompany the two modules.

Author

Kate Cairns is a social worker and social work teacher. With her partner, Brian, and their three birth children, she provided permanence for a group of 12 looked after children, all of whom are now adult. She is the author of the bestselling Attachment, trauma and resilience.

Eileen Fursland is a professional freelance writer. She has written a number of books and feature stories for magazines.