All foster carers with Five Rivers Fostering will have their own allocated Fostering Link Social Worker. Their social worker will get to know you and your family. Their role is to provide foster families with ongoing support, guidance and advice. At the start of each placement visits to your family are weekly and then they are monthly once a child/young person in your care is settled. There is also weekly phone contact, which can be increased, as needed. Five Rivers Fostering social workers have manageable caseloads to allow them to provide a high level of support to the families they work with.

All foster carers with Five Rivers Fostering have access to a 24 hour on call service whereby they can contact the on call social worker to discuss any concerns.

We have a range of therapist working as part of our team such as play therapists, Marte Meo attachment therapists and psychotherapist. These can work with adults and/or children/young people.

Five Rivers Fostering currently have an educational psychologist as well as an education support worker as part of their team. Our educational psychologist can support children/young people both in the school and at home through the completion of educational assessments as well as direct one to one work. Our education support worker works directly with children/young people to support them in school as well as guide them in relation to their education options.

We currently have a counseling psychologist as part of our team. Counseling or therapy can be provided to foster carers, foster children as well as birth children of foster families, as it is needed. Consultation is also available. We have a number of social care workers as part of our team. They are professionally qualified to work directly with children/young people who are in care on an individual or group basis. They can also work with birth children of foster families if difficulties arise for them.

All foster carers attend ‘Foundations for Fostering’ training as part of their assessment. Once approved, we provide on-going training on relevant issues to foster carers. Training is offered at various locations around Ireland. Attending training courses gives foster carers the opportunity to meet with other foster carers and get valuable advice and support directly from them. Please see our training section for more information.

At Five Rivers Fostering we place great emphasis on people learning form others experiences as foster carers. To promote this informal support to one another we organise various coffee mornings and family days throughout the year.

Finally, there is also an allowance provided to families to cover the costs of providing food, shelter, transport, clothing and education to a child in your care. This allowance is not considered as an income for tax purposes and should not affect any social welfare entitlements or tax credits that you are currently claiming.