In order to thrive in the role of foster carer, you need to feel empowered by your choices. To do this, it is important to have a solid idea of what you require and where your boundaries are. It is beneficial in so many ways because not only does it lead to a higher degree of confidence in the role, but it also provides you with a great foundation for building those core skills and creating meaningful changes in the lives of young people. This guide explores the topic in more detail below.ย
What Are Empowering Choices?
Empowering choices are the decisions that serve you positively. It is stepping away from people pleasing and feeling uncomfortable and embracing meaningful outputs instead. Whether you achieve this through holding boundaries or connecting with your voice, everything you do will help boost your experience and make life more positive. So, what does this mean for foster carers?
Picking the Right Agency
The first big decision you will make as a foster carer is which agency to work with. The best provisions have excellent Ofsted ratings represented here by orangegrovefostercare.co.uk, incredible support, fantastic training, and great allowances too. This is the most important choice of all and will help you to get the journey started in a positive way.
Choosing to Understand Yourself
People who look after children in care need to know their own minds and connect with all of their flaws and strengths. The choice to get to know yourself will lead you to better outcomes overall and ensure that you feel confident to lead a young person to where they need to be throughout the time you spend together.
Foster care is for anyone who wants to make a difference in a young personโs life, so you will never be turned away for mental health struggles. However, moving through things like depression and anxiety is always going to be easier and beneficial to the fostering role if you put everything on the table and have amazing strategies as you move things forward.
Picking Nurture Over Conflict
There will always be moments when working with young people, where the choice of conflict vs. nurture comes into the arena. Which path will you take? Ultimately, conflict has a place but only when it is constructive. Where it is necessary, it should be met with a challenge to a line of thinking as opposed to becoming involved in fruitless back and forth. Advocate for their best interests at all times but understand when to step back and let a situation run its course naturally.
Nurture is the thing that drives authentic change and impactful connection. Conflict should never be used as a tool or a way to feel in control. As a carer, this is one of the toughest decisions you will make, but it will ultimately serve a higher purpose if you get it right.
Empowering choices are the things that guide and shape a journey. Foster carers have a major responsibility to the young people they look after to ensure that every choice that is made in that environment is a safe one.
