Why Disability-Focused Fostering Is Easier Than You Think And Richer Than You Imagine

What if children with complex health needs didn’t have to grow up in hospitals or residential units, but could experience everyday family life instead with your help? 

We sit down with Richard Powell, managing director of Credo Care, to unpack how specialist fostering makes that possible — and far more achievable than most imagine.

Across 25 years, Credo Care has built a model that treats foster carers as professionals and partners. Richard explains how the message is clear: you don’t need to be a medic to foster brilliantly; you need willingness to learn, consistency, compassion and a brilliant team at your back.

We also tackle the practical hurdles — from equipment and home adaptations to the patchwork of local funding — and how careful matching over weeks or months builds placements that last. 

Richard shares why burnout prevention is built in, not bolted on: a large support‑worker team for everyday breathing room, dedicated respite carers who become part of the extended family, and a culture that honours joy alongside complexity. Outcomes reflect that care: few breakdowns, more permanence through adoption or special guardianship, and smooth transitions into adulthood via Shared Lives where needed.

Along the way, we dispel the biggest myth in disability‑focused fostering: that high medical needs mean high difficulty. With training, mentoring, and steady coordination with hospitals and local authorities, families discover that complex care can weave into ordinary routines — school runs, clubs, and quiet nights in. 

If you’ve wondered whether fostering could be for you, this conversation offers a grounded, hopeful roadmap and a challenge to think bigger about what home can mean.

If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review with your top takeaway — your share might be the reason a child finds a family.

For those interested in what Palliative care looks like at home there is "The Last Kiss" (Not a Romance)
Available on Amazon now
 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Last-Kiss-Romance-Carers-Stories/dp/1919635289/ref=sr_1_1?crid=13D6YWONKR5YH&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9._59mNNFoc-rROuWZnAQfsG0l3iseuQuK_gx-VxO_fe6DLJR8M0Az039lJk_HxFcW2o2HMhIH3r3PuD7Dj-D6KTwIHDMl2Q51FGLK8UFYOBwbRmrLMbpYoqOL6I5ruLukF1vq7umXueIASDS2pO91JktkZriJDJzgLfPv1ft5UtkdQxs9isRDmzAYzc5MKKztINcNGBq-GRWKxgvc_OV5iKKvpw0I5d7ZQMWuvGZODlY.fqQgWV-yBiNB5186RxkkWvQYBoEsDbyq-Hai3rU1cwg&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+last+kiss+not+a+romance&qid=1713902566&s=books&sprefix=The+Last+kiss+n%2Cstripbooks%2C107&sr=1-1

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello again and uh welcome to Everything Foster Care with me, Jason Control. And uh our uh brilliant interview today is with Richard Powell of Credo Care. Now, as you know, I've been learning about how there is a whole different range of types of foster caring from long-term, short-term, uh respite care. But Richard's company, uh his independent fostering uh agency, started 25 years ago, specializes in children with disabilities of all different types. And in this interview, he gives a really great overview of what's that like, what the support there is like, how uh it's um a bit tricky sometimes to get people to get rid of that myth that it's a really difficult thing to do because most of the time it's not, the support that's out there and a whole range of different areas around looking after kids with more needs than usual, let's say. If anybody has any questions that they are interested in asking, either go directly to Credo or give me a shout on the comments below. Like, subscribe and share. Remember, the share is the really important thing here because it's that thing where it might not be for you, might not be for your friends, but it might be for your friends' friends, in which case somebody gets fostered. Okay, enjoy the interview. Hello, Richard Powell, the managing director of Credo Care. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_01 1:22

It is David, yes, Credo Care Fostering. That's us. And uh um thank you for having me on your show.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Okay, no, that's very kind of you to take the the time. Um first things, Credo. That means something, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 1:37

It is uh it's togetherness, it's it's a sense of one, it's um uh a name actually developed by uh Roy Hipkiss and uh Damien Mead, our two our two fellow directors who started the company, what, 25 years ago now? We're in our 25th year.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Yeah, I read that in the year 2000. I mean that's uh that's a celebration time, is it? This year? It is.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

And uh yeah, we've been doing a lot actually. So there's been um really in good engagement with the staff, the carers and children, and um we've had a couple of uh notable visits from uh people and we've had uh David Suchet do us a little video, and we've had Oh um uh yeah, we so we put lots of events around and it's been a great year. Comes to an end, in effect, the 25th year in August, but uh we're still in a celebratory mode.

Credo Care’s Origin And Mission

SPEAKER_00 2:33

Okay. Well, that's what we'd like to hear. Now, uh just I think you already know that I'm a foster carer myself. Yeah. But you have a particular speciality for your uh children, don't you? Can you tell us a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_01 2:46

That's right. So the agency really started with the aim of trying to support children with additional needs, disabilities, etc. And that was quite unique at the time, and I still believe it is unique. And it's something that has developed probably more over the last six, seven years, into more supporting children with also additional health needs, palliative care needs, end-of-life kind of support. And that's not to say that we don't still support children with additional needs and general disabilities, which we do, but there's been a growing focus on finding families for children who traditionally may have spent more time in hospital, residential care, or even hospice care.

unknown 3:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

And it's something we've got to do. Funnily enough, I um I spent the my my actual job, the little business I've got, is delivering cooking oil. I mean, it's not it's a peculiar niche. Uh but when COVID hit, nobody wanted cooking oil because uh nobody was going out. Um and so I had to go back to my old profession of being a nurse, and I went to work for a hospice. So the podcast prior to this was everything end of life, funnily enough. And one of the things that was most notable, I think, is unless you're actually working in that profession, when you say end of life uh for children, that throws up all sorts of scare stories in people's heads, I think, and they go, Oh gosh, I I don't know what how what what do I do with that? You know. Uh so how do you how do you frame that towards for foster carers to say, this is something, it's a process, you will go through it and you will come out on the other side.

Demystifying End‑Of‑Life And Palliative Care

SPEAKER_01 4:37

Well, for a number of foster carers that we have, that won't be their experience because those uh children with those needs aren't living with them. But for those foster carers that um uh who maybe don't even set out to actually have a child with a life-limiting condition because that wasn't their as you say, it's not a conversation that some foster carers start on their journey to foster. Nobody wakes up and says, I'd like more children in my house. Lots of people who foster have thought about it for years, if not sometimes decades. Come to us. Yeah. And for those children who have sort of end-of-life needs, we do a lot of matching, a lot of consideration about who the best family is for that child, which is why we find placing children with such needs, it takes uh quite a while, weeks, if not sometimes months. And then in part, that's trying to get the carers to get into that space to understand the ramifications for not just for themselves but for their wider family. And we see the foster family as not just obviously the foster carers, but maybe their own children, other foster children in the household. And so our child, well the child joining them, becomes part of the family. And um we've put some things in place to support, and I can take you through that. Yeah, that would be great. So um we started with one, just having a very clear structure about what we mean by palliative care, end-of-life care. So we've got some very, you know, very clear basic policies and procedures, if you want to call it. So there's the guides that help explain what we're talking about. We then also have um uh staff champions, um, foster care mentors, we also have nurse trainers. So we have about six nurse trainers, um, also tend to be um sometimes palliative care nurses, um, intensive care nurses, pediatric nurses, and a range of uh experiences and skills that they bring to us. Then we're not their full-time employer, they're they're often working in other fields or the NHS and work with us. And so they they also have nurse time. So we allocate nurse time to advocate for our foster carers within the wider health world of trying to understand and what it means by some of the jargon, respect documents, advanced care plans. If you're not starting in the journey with knowing all this, it's all new. It's uh it's confusing. And we try to navigate our way through by assisting our carers in understanding it so they feel part of it and not excluded from it.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

One of the things I liked about your website is you talk about treating your foster carers as professionals, uh as kind of almost equals, as you say. Uh, and I think that's just incredibly important for the foster care as a foster carer to feel valued. And that really comes across on your website is a partnership thing that seems to be going on.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

It is. And strangely, we've just actually updated our foster carers charter, the pledge that we as an agency our foster carers offer to each other, but what we offer the children. So our charters um uh just in final development, probably be published uh um in the next week or two. But that experience just takes us through what our foster carers are hoping to achieve. And when you're in the world of supporting children with um serious health conditions, then just being able to be in the room to talk to professionals, some of the doctors, some of the nurses, alongside the local party or even the birth parents, as a as a partnership. And often sometimes are excluded from quite delicate conversations, as seen as you're not the legal parents of this particular child, but they're there every day. They're the crucial member of that child's life.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Yeah, we've had that in the past, uh, whereas the there'll be a meeting about the children that we might have been looking after for six months or some longer and have an intimate knowledge of. And uh and the meeting will be for the professionals and then we'll be invited to join. It's like okay. You know, but I I mean I get that. Having been a psychiatric nurse, uh I've um been on the other side of the fence where you know you'll have a patient review and then the the relatives and the patient might be invited in after the uh uh multi-disciplinary team have have uh talked it through and their approach, etc. So I mean I kind of get that. It can be a little tricky for some carers to understand that. Um I'd like to take this back to a personal level, though, just for a sec, if I may, Richard. And that is you could have chosen any profession. So what made you choose this profession, may I ask?

SPEAKER_01 9:45

Well, actually I started out my nurse training as well. So um I was training as um uh learning disability and general nurse um in South Croydon. And uh I I did I loved nursing. I loved actually patient care. Um but I found I was spending more time um wanting to understand people's stories and histories and whether someone's had a stroke or uh Gillen Barry syndrome or has got cancer. I was finding myself more just talking to 50-year-old men who have lost their business and are never gonna drive again, and uh than doing ops and injections. And so I thought, is this the right profession for me? And I left and uh re-evaluated what I wanted to do, and uh a colleague had left and become a social worker, and talking to him, uh I thought maybe that's professional means. So back to university I went and became a social worker, and I've always found um the world of disability. I've got a daughter who's got additional needs, she's got a disability, lives at home with us, and so it's something that I uh I think I've had uh uh an interest in, personal interest, and it's just grown and grown. And I love where we're working. Uh, I think we've got a great team, and the foster carers, frankly, are amazing. And uh credit and my hats off to the foster carers for what they do, what they um give up, and hopefully what it brings in terms of joy, even though at times it can become a sad situation.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

Yeah, I mean, certainly from a personal level. Sorry. Um we found, you know, even with some of the tough children, the the level of joy is just incomparable. Uh, you know, evidenced only by on Friday we'd had a uh couple of kids for a year, and we hadn't seen them for a a long time. And uh the young the older one uh phoned up uh out of completely out of the blue to tell us that uh she's uh horse riding again, because we got her into horse riding. And just that one connection that she still wanted to be, you know, uh still seeking our approval and wanting to be a part of the family sort of thing was just absolutely ratifying uh as to what foster care is all about. So yeah, it's uh I'd say foster care is one of those things that makes your heart much bigger, you know, even when you get into it. Um but yeah, and and you mentioned the training, which I think is uh something worth mentioning because you're gonna have a different set of training than normal foster, just basic foster care training. And for us, we've got so much training. I've got to tell you, the first day that we went in to be talking about foster care, they said, Well, we've got two days training to give you. And I I said to my wife, two days? What on earth are they gonna try and fill up with two days, you know? And little did I know that that needed probably four or five weeks, really. Uh and the the amount of training and support that you get as a foster carer is phenomenal. But yours will be a little bit more specialist, like kind of thing. You're gonna have a different range of of uh training and courses available. Is that correct?

Valuing Carers As Professionals

SPEAKER_01 13:09

It is, and so all foster carers will have that generic um what's called mandatory training, you know, understanding, safeguarding, how to protect children, how to keep children safe at home, your health and safety kind of training. But in regards to the children or number of the children we're placing, that additional child-specific training we call it, and that's where for children who have got um health needs, it comes with trying to understand what a uh a peg is in terms of feeding a child or a nasogastric tube and how to pass food through a tube. Even um, you know, we have children who have tracheostomy, so how to manage and care for the fact that um there's some really risky situations that could occur. And how do you address those? So we we do palliative um um palliative care training, but also pediatric first aid and just that child specific. And that's where our frankly our nurse trainers or pediatric physios come into their own. And it's amazing that we've managed to attract uh some really quality uh uh uh trainers basically to our agency. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

I mean uh for me, um I uh I'm I'm familiar with pegs and you know and uh tracheostomy stuff, and uh and um but for those who aren't, I remember one of my patients uh four years ago who's uh and I I'm I'm not a nurse anymore. Um and uh there was a young student nurse with us, and it was the first time she's in a colostomy uh and a bag, and uh she was just completely thrown. She didn't know that that actually even existed as a thing. And I thought, how can you go this far in your training and on that's there? But it you know, it happens sometimes. Uh um and it took a little bit of just gentle saying it's okay, because the patient was lying there needing the bag change, etc., and saying it's okay, you know, and it's okay to be surprised. And the patient was going, I get this all the time, don't worry. And I thought that was very generous of them. But it can be a bit, you know, visually shocking.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

Not just for the foster carers, um obviously the wider family, the chat the other children, both children in the household. And the child arrives with all these additional bits of equipment and needs. And so there's a lot of work to be done to try and ensure that the child who's joining the household has got the best care possible, but also the family that are having that child are prepared as much as we can. And so again, we do things like we have um uh foster care mentors who support new foster carers for six months to help them take them through a journey. Um nurse time that we give the carers again. It's more about trying to understand and be basically be prepared for what's coming down the road. And um look, I might have had my um nurse training background and uh doing this for um uh many, many years. Um I'm still learning about some of the conditions that some of our children come to us with. And so we encourage our social workers to, and we do provide the relevant training on things like what is APEG and what is uh a JEG. These are all different types of equipment and tubes that children might come with. Well, we all need to understand what they are, how to manage it, how to support it, and work with the other professionals around that child, community nursing, etc. Yeah. Just give the best situation that we can when we address uh address any issues that come up.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

And do you get uh a lot of support from uh hospitals, local authorities with equipment and um the actual uh bones of, if you like, of care, the you know, the wheelchairs in the and I'd like to say it's a mixed bag sometimes. I was gonna say it's a tricky question, sorry. I've been thought. No, no, it's not what it creates a problem.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

It's something that we've been working with for many years. And um for those families that have a child with a disability, they'll know you can get some grants from the council to maybe have some adaptations for a particular child or that child who's coming. But if that if that grant has been accessed already by maybe the birth family, then it's not going to be available to the foster carer in some circumstances. And we provide respite. And so um uh the grant or those sorts of uh contributions to our respite carers is not available. So if you're having a child who's got particular needs, maybe uses a wheelchair or has needs tracking on the ceiling. So we've been doing some adaptions to people's houses, um putting in wet rooms if needed. Um it's expensive. It's um it's not able to be done for every household because of because of things like costs. So we're looking at how we can uh address that. But um, yeah, the equipment is a large part of uh what we need to try and have in place for making things again safe, comfortable, take the pressure off the family, basically.

Richard’s Path From Nursing To Social Work

SPEAKER_00 18:28

Okay, um so let's talk about uh this is the interesting bit for me is uh how do you entice people to think about becoming foster carers for credo? I mean what's I don't I don't know where to begin with that really. I mean, how do you uh I mean I'm the the real whole reason of this podcast is because I realise, you know, just in general, we're at 6,000 foster care families short in this country. Uh and that's 10,000 kids needing, you know, uh a real home for real kids. Um so it's kind of tough already. And and you're out there in a sense in the market trying to uh convince people to become foster carers for children with extra needs. So how have you how do you go about that? I'm interested in that. Uh because the point of this podcast is to get more is to inspire more people to become foster carers.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

Well, fostering, I think, if you want to foster, it is an absolutely amazing opportunity to uh without it being a cliche to make a difference to a child's life. Um Yeah, 100%. We've had children who have come to us who have um left residential care. They've never lived in a family since leaving their birth family. And we've had children come to us from hospital who have never left hospital since birth. So the opportunity to have a child come to you who really is looking for a family is is uh is is um we can only but say thank you to every foster carer that comes forward. So how do we do it? Um we're we've got the the added, as you say, the added challenge of of all the foster carers who are thinking I want to foster, go through the process. But who starts their journey by saying, actually, I'd like to foster a child with really complex needs and disabilities, um might have to give a lot up to have the sorts of um time and commitment, and maybe even give enough work to come and have a child with those sorts of additional needs. So you're already in a small pool of of people who want to think I'd like to become a foster carer, and out of that pool, how many start their journey with, you know what, I'd like a really complex child, if you don't mind. And so you already started with uh with a large pool would come in a small pool. And then the requirements. So we're not asking for everybody to have a downstairs bedroom or um to have the facilities to have a child with a wheelchair, and most of our children are not in wheelchairs, they're they're actually you know mobile, get about kids um of all ages from um six weeks up to 16 um when they come to us. So it's it's weird it's a hard task, but we do get a lot of inquiries. And last month we had over a hundred inquiries. That is that is people interesting us to say, I think I'd like to start my fostering journey. I'm at the beginning of my fostering journey, um, or even existing foster carers who transfer to us, which actually is quite common. Um but we can come on to that one. But in terms of the someone starting their journey with us, sometimes there is that nurturing process of taking them through the process of becoming a foster carer. They're not quite ready yet. They might just be inquiring. Um We get a lot of inquiries from because I think the nature of our uh cohort of children, we get a lot of inquiries from health professionals, education professionals, care professionals, but also family members who may have had or have had a child um sadly might have even passed away, or they have a child who's grown up or have a child with additional needs, and they're wanted to continue their journey to care. And they have the skills, they have the knowledge, and they want to familiarity, yeah. And we have a place for them to come, basically.

Training For Complex Health Needs

SPEAKER_00 22:37

You know, I think that's uh fabulous. Um because yeah, uh you know, it's nice to hear that there is a a steady stream, if you like, of inquiries. Um And that leads on to another slightly tricky question uh is what is the kind of and how do you deal with burnout? Because it it will happen for some people. It'll be just a bit tough and they'll leave the profession.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

Uh and um so is that a big big issue for you guys or is it not so much It's actually not the largest issue that we find um for how we um I suppose lose foster carers. Uh our ours tends to be with um foster carers um taking a child into their own hearts permanently and often through adoption and special gardenship orders. That's where they become, in effect, the legal parent for that child. So um a lot of our children, when they leave us, they leave us through becoming permanently placed with their carers, which is a great outcome uh for us. Well, it's for a really good to become. Uh the others is because of our children having all these additional needs, as they get older and become 18, a lot stay with their carers under what's called shared lives. It's an adult care kind of provision. So they leave fostering maybe, but become adult carers to that same child. So again, a great outcome, continuity for that young person, but it's an opportunity for um for families in effect to end fostering and do a different career path. But the way we try and reduce the general burnout is one, there's the respite care. So because of the nature of the children that we have, sometimes having a break is needed. There's not a lot of time off if you've got a child, if you're a birth family member with a child with a disability. Can you just pop out? Can you just go away for the night? You might thinking, oh, I can't really leave the 16-year-old because of his additional needs. I might need to get someone in. So we have support workers. So, you know, we've got about 65, 70 support workers, and they work with our foster carers on. That's that's amazing. Yeah, it's it's um uh uh I'll be I'll be out there. Not a lot of fostering agencies have support workers um who would basically come to your home and maybe be there for five, ten hours, once or twice a week to give a break. Um, depending on you know, holiday times or term times, maybe just coming over for a couple of hours in the evening, um, or maybe even taking a young person to the brownies or to cups. And so uh and because of their needs, they need additional support to be able to attend those groups. So we have support workers, but also respite carers. And having the respite carers, which is other foster carers, as you know, who will have a child come to them for a night, a weekend, maybe a week or two, and then go back to their main carers.

Equipment, Adaptations And Funding Gaps

SPEAKER_00 25:52

Do you know we have found I mean I've got to plug here FS just for a second, this uh Eastern Fostering Services, because that's our that's who we work for. And they've been really supportive when we've needed that bit of time. And it does come in that two things, you know, one of their staff or support workers popping out and just saying, look, here take a break, take an hour. Uh because we've had some quite you know high maintenance kids. Um and uh but also, and this is the and I'm sure you've had this, is we have in the agency they have two or three um foster carers who just do respite. And they become like family, you know, after a while. Uh and it's a really it becomes a really close-knit uh you know, support network, if you like, and they become a part part of that bigger support. And you get to know them and the kids get to know them. And that's I think for us the most important thing is that the children, we're not just saying, look, go over there for uh two hours and give the or two weeks and give us a break. Uh they feel like they're going on holiday, you know. And that is such, you know, and that's the way we kind of frame it when we uh when we need a break, which isn't that often, to be honest. Uh, and if we have little holidays, they'll they'll come with us, you know. So because we just uh we just love fostering to be honest, monks for this game. Um So let's talk about uh well first of all I just want to cover the the size of your agency because I I noticed that you've got 27 members of permanent staff, albeit one of them being a small bear. I believe. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 27:33

You will see that bear at some of our children's events, and uh we've got the outfit, and whoever is inside, which is obviously Credo Bear. Um and the kids absolutely love Credo Bear when he's about.

SPEAKER_00 27:53

Yeah, I was gonna say that's a job for the winter, really, rather than the blazing summer. But yeah, so generally speaking, um uh I think our foster agency has about uh 50 foster carers. I mean, have you got a is that comparable or have you got a a lot more?

Recruiting And Nurturing New Carers

SPEAKER_01 28:13

Uh probably a little bit under ours, but not too, not too much. And um, you know, we'll we'll we will recruit at times uh 15 foster care fast fostering families a year, which doesn't sound a lot. But when you're looking to, as I was saying, when you're trying to find, you know, 200 families, think, oh, we're thinking about fostering, but only 100 actually put an application into foster. Of those hundred that put an application in foster, I bet you there's probably only one or two that start their journey saying, and we'd really like a child with um disabilities or complex health needs to come live with us. And so you're already on a this diminishing pool of resources that you're trying to attract to come to come to you. So what that means is that um uh the journey can be challenging for us, but um support and respite are the are two big key points that make fostering work, frankly. Yeah, I would say. And it's great that you're getting support over where you are, and I and that that's what I really would like. We'd just like to spread the fact that uh supporting a child with additional needs, it's not a common theme for a lot of agencies, uh which is why I said earlier about the transfers. And as you know, David, that's some foster carers they're allowed to, you know, they're not allowed to, they can just choose it themselves. They move between agencies, and it's sometimes um it's for various reasons. The biggest reasons why we have foster carers transfer from maybe one agency to to us is often they've had a child, it's been three, four, five years, they've literally not had a day off. And they're looking for some break, they're looking for some time to stop that burnout. And sometimes what's happened is that they've come to us. And it's the reason we have those staff numbers in in part is um even just having a respite coordinator, the complexities of being able to actually move a child from one household to another with his oxygen. Um, have you got tracking? What about the hoist? What about the bed bath? Yeah, have you got a profile bed? All these things, they all add up to a lot of activity, a lot of planning to ensure that even that weekend break, and we've got we've got respite foster carers who are GPs, who are nurses, who are teachers, um, and so they they find their space to give us the time to have a child who can hopefully enrich their lives, which I believe it does. Um, but it the whole thing is about, as you say, preventing burnout, helping foster carers feel um supported. And that's how we're doing it here.

SPEAKER_00 31:05

That's amazing. Now, going forward, uh what are the plans? Because we you've been there now for 25 years, uh and what have you got in mind for the next can I say throw you on the spot? The next 25 years, yeah. I want it day by day detailed if you'll mind just so um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

Uh in part the la the the larger staff group that if you were more localized into a one particular region is because we are spread out across the regions. And you know, we work with what at the moment about 45 local authorities who place children with us.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:47

Um and that's because some of the children with the complexities that come to us, a small local authority or uh even a large unitary who um uh would maybe only have three or four types of children who would come to Crado Care in their cohort of children in care. Um that there may be their own foster carers can't meet the needs, but they don't want to place them in residential care. So they'll come to Crador Care. And so in that, that's why we're spread out. So, yes, we cover the you know, you're in Eastern. Um, I live in Lincolnshire, I used to live in uh Suffolk, and so you know, we cover you know, Suffolk, Norfolk, Lincolnshire, Essex, Bedford, Hertfordshire. Once he starts getting married, you need the you know, meet our foster carers who are in Southend and Stevenage and Norfolk and well you know, Ipswich, Norwich, um Swalding, uh Peterborough. It's once you start that, you need the staff to be able to give the support that foster carers just need to serve.

SPEAKER_00 33:00

I've I've got to say that is one of the things that we've found in foster caring. Uh is it is a profession, um, but it's one where you get such an amazing journey. You start off thinking, well, you know, we could help uh child at home, and then you understand you get to understand that most kids sorry, from uh or the large percentage, shall we say, come from neglect or abuse or um or tricky, difficult stu circumstances, otherwise they wouldn't be coming into care in the first place. Um and uh and then your eyes start to get widened a little bit more about you know the bigger world out there and the needs of children in general. And it's almost like, well, God, well uh where can I be of most use? Who do I go to to uh you know uh to find that out? And um our our care, I I'm sure your foster care uh uh supervising social workers are kind of really well trained, but I just want to give a heads up for one of us, Sam Grant, who uh she's really out there to make sure that we are matched um specifically with children that we can use our therapeutic parenting uh approach with and and make progression for those children. So, and you know, we're to be fair, we look after the younger children. Uh some people, I have a friend Camilla who's amazing, she and her partner look after teenagers, but it's horses for courses, and it's like finding out what is your own personal um skill set, if you like. What are you best, how can you best help children? So just as a last kind of thing, how how do you work that out? I mean, I I don't know how Sam does it and uh Emily are um placement uh but they they just have this understanding of what we can offer uh and they don't put people where the or kids with us that might the whole thing might break down because it's not appropriate placement. So yeah, that's the one thing.

Preventing Burnout With Respite And Support

SPEAKER_01 35:13

Well, um in terms of the wider world of disability, if I was to call it that, you know, we're autism accredited, we've got an autism coordinator, behavior coordinator, and that's because if you don't have some of that expertise within your staff group, when challenges happen, when behavior becomes uh a concern, you want to be able to address it in a most sensitive, engaging, and uh way that makes a ch makes a change for the positive. And so um some of our social workers have been with us 15, 20 years. And so so they're they're you know, I I believe our social work team is are really skilled. We try and keep cases in terms of case low to low. So we manage and give people the time to get about and see our families, see our children. And so, with that, what that does is it sort of encourages the um the real personalized matching. So um I know all our families, but it's because I'm you know the managing director and the registered manager. I I I need to. I know all our staff, I know all our social workers and the skills and qualities that they bring. And I think the relationship that they have with their families is uh very close, very engaging. So when there are, and I'm you know, in the world of placing children into families, you know, the vacancies, if you want to call it, that a family may have, a space, how many children can they have if they've got a vacancy? We we don't have many spaces available because there's so many children that are referred to us as needing a home that as long as we get the right kind of match, that we make sure that the child is best placed with this family, this family can meet this child's needs, and uh the work that's done over weeks to engage means that we have very few children to end their fostering in what would be called a breakdown. Most children leave us because they grow up and they leave. Some go home to their birth families, um, and that's the uniqueness with some of our children. They're not coming in always because of abuse or harm, it's because sometimes families with disabilities just haven't got the ability or needs um to meet that child's need. So we do a lot of shared care as well, and we have children who live at home with their family and come into us for breaks, so short breaks. Um and we do respite for other agencies actually, because they don't have any respite carers. So their children come to us to have a break. Um that works well as well. So we're just trying to find the best way to make sure that all the children come to us are in the right families and hopefully live through their rest of their minority to the best that they can. And sadly, for those children who might pass away, even if they do that they've had a great time as as much as possible, living with a family while in hospital.

SPEAKER_00 38:17

100%. Um I'm gonna ask one last question before we leave it. And I'm gonna say thank you for your time. It's been brilliant. Uh this is a bit of a curveboard one, is um what's the biggest myth about fostering that you perhaps would like to dispel?

SPEAKER_01 38:37

Um I'd probably that you well, I'd probably say that I when I talk to many new families who thinking about joining us and they see and hear this word of high needs and high medical needs. Oh, I'm not skilled about that. I can't do that. Of course, lots of families and lots of people can become brilliant foster carers without having to be a nurse, without having to be an S EN teacher. They just need to be great motivation, the desire to want to make a difference to that child, and we can support them through the training, the mentoring, the care, the engagement that they get get from us as an agency. Yeah. We've had many brilliant and long-term foster carers who came to us not with massive child care experience, but you know what? They b they became brilliant and remain brilliant foster carers.

SPEAKER_00 39:33

That's fabulous. That is absolutely fabulous. Listen, thank you so much for your time, uh, Richard, and uh very good luck in the future. And let's keep in touch uh and hopefully do another interview, you know, in a year or two, uh, and see how the organization has grown and um how the credo bear may have developed and uh gotta put his hand in the honey pot or something, you know. We'll be fun uh doing that.

SPEAKER_01 40:02

And I'd just like to wish you well on your fostering journey and uh amazing and meeting another amazing foster care. Well, that's made my day, really.

SPEAKER_00 40:10

Yeah. No, well there, thank you very much. I'll take that. Uh all right, Richard Pell. Thank you very much. Take care then. So what I've got. What an organization, credo care. Um without a doubt, one of the kindest things that you can possibly do is to start uh a fostering agency, an independent fostering agency, specifically for children with extra needs. And um it takes some special people to run that. And as a managing director, I think uh Riss is juggling an awful lot of stuff, and it makes it sound and look so easy, but that must be a pretty high-pressure job. So uh if you want to get in contact, uh the information will be on the website, Credo Care, C-R-E-D-O. And you can either contact me, you can contact them. Remember to like, subscribe, and share. And sharing is where it's at. Sharing is caring and all that sort of stuff. Yeah, let's look forward to the next interview.