The South West Summer Newsletter

Info Pack

south westSummer Edition 2014

the

News and Events from Swiis Foster Care South West

InsiderNews from Swiis

Meet the Team

our newsSwiis Newsletter South West Summer Edition 01

Gaynor BabbLiz joined Swiis Foster Care in 2013 as regional Business Manager, and comes with a background of over eight years experience within the independent fostering sector in recruiting, supporting and assisting in the assessment of foster carers across the UK. Liz has experience in marketing and advertising, initial home visit assessments to prospective carers and has worked within a multidisciplinary team. Liz has volunteered overseas working directly with disadvantaged children and young people, and has volunteered as a mentor with looked after children and young people.

Liz Culley Faith Giles

Paidholidays

Experienced buddy

allocated within 2 weeks

Events, activities& outings

Monthly visits, weekly phonecalls

Accessto education advisers,

therapists andhealth support

Monthly carer support

groups

Qualified socialworkers24/7

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Faith joined Swiis Foster Care in September 2013 as a Supervising Social Worker. Faith has previous working experience as an unqualified Social Worker in local authority teams, working with children and young people who are looked after and who are the subjects of child protection plans. Faith also completed a placement as a part of the Masters programme within a fostering team.

Gaynor is the Registered Manager for the southwest team, and her role is to manage the Bristol social work team who support foster carers and the children in placement. Gaynor has 20 years of social work experience in Child Protection teams and Looked after Children teams within local authorities in Wales. Gaynor also holds a Cardiff University Qualified Teacher Degree, and has taught Social Work to Masters and Degree Social Work students at Cardiff University and Newport University. Gaynor has worked with children and young people for the whole of her 20 year social work career.


Meet the Team


Sarah Brodigan Lisa Burton

Paidholidays

Experienced buddy







groups


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Lisa began working for Swiis in March 2014, and brings to Swiis 2 years experience of working as an initial visit specialist, going to peoples homes and talking about the fostering role. Previous to this Lisa has also worked with children in many different capacities, from working in specialist childrens homes, to special schools. As the Recruitment Officer Lisa is responsible for attending events throughout the Southwest spreading the fostering message to as many people as possible, ensuring that those people who are considering fostering receive all the relevant information.

Since joining Swiis in 2011, Sarah has worked as a senior support worker, recruitment administrator and client liaison officer within the health and social care sector, and currently works as a Social Work Support Officer for the Southwest Foster Care team. Throughout her career, Sarah has worked for a number of charitable organisations in various roles including support worker, support group facilitator and supported living team manager. She has also worked as volunteer in Nepal, teaching and supporting young children and teenagers.

Paidholidays

Experienced buddy







groups


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Paidholidays

Experienced buddy


Events, activities

& outings

Monthly visits, weekly

phonecallsAccess

to education advisers,



groups

Qualified social

workers24/7

2+2=

Paidholidays

Experienced buddy







groups


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Paidholidays

Experienced buddy







groups


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New Starters


Emma joined the Bristol Office in August 2014 as a Supervising Social Worker. Emma was previously employed as a Safeguarding Social Worker in a busy Child Protection team, working cases from point of referral to permanence planning or signposting. During this time Emma completed MAIVIC training (Multi Agency Investigation and Video Interview Course) with Staffordshire Police Constabulary, enabling her to jointly video interview children as evidence within joint agency Child Protection Investigations. Emma also has experience working for CAFCASS, completing Private Law reports requested by the Family Courts to provide advice on the childs best interests in relation to Residence, Contact and Parental Responsibility applications.

Emma RodgersChristopher started working for Swiis in August 2014 as a Supervising Social Worker. Christopher is a Social Worker with over 5 years of experience working with children and families. He was previously employed in a Child Protection team in Bristol and also has experience of working in one of the few Independent Social Work practices in the country for looked after children.

Christopher Stephenson

Ofsted registrationOur Southwest office was officially registered with Ofsted as an Independent Fostering Agency serving the Southwest following a visit by an Ofsted inspector in January 2014. As a first Tier provider to the Southwest sub region fostering contract we have since started building our pool of great foster carers!

Jess began working for Swiis in September 2014 and brings experience in carer recruitment, initial visits and Panel administration. Jess has volunteered for a charity that offers support, advice and activities for fostered and adopted children and their families. Within her voluntary role Jess assisted with the planning and delivery of activities and worked closely with children and families to explore and communicate their thoughts and feelings about being part of a fostering family. As a Recruitment Officer Jess is responsible for attending events throughout the Southwest spreading the fostering message to as many people as possible, ensuring that those people who are considering fostering receive all the information they need to make an informed decision.

Jessica Harrison

Online training

We will now be providing online training by AC Education who are E-Learning specialists. There are a range of courses available to ensure you are provided with knowledge across a broad range of issues that are essential to the children and young people you will be working with. Your online training options can be discussed with your Supervising Social Worker or the training team.

Swiis Newsletter South West Summer Edition 04

An introduction to our training

teamGeorgina MayTraining & Development ManagerGeorgina joined Swiis in July 2013 as Training and Development Manager. Previous to this role Georgina worked as a Safeguarding Manager within the prison service for 13 years, working with the most challenging and vulnerable teenage boys. Following this experience Georgina became a foster carer in 2010 as she felt she had the right skill set to provide a secure and safe home to young people in care. As a Training and Development Manager Georgina provides preparation and core training to new, existing and prospective foster carers, which are pivotal tools in assisting and supporting foster carers in the development of the carer role.

Catherine joined Swiis in May 2012 as Team Leader for the Healthcare team in Bristol, and started her role as In-House Trainer in 2013. Catherine has over ten years experience of working in the health and social care sector, the main bulk of her experience has been supporting people affected by learning disabilities and those with complex health needs. As the In-House Trainer Catherine delivers training across the Foster Care and Healthcare services for Swiis, including the preparation training for prospective foster carers and post-approval mandatory training.

Catherine Loring In House Trainer

Laura Evans Training Co-ordinatorLaura has been with Swiis for 3 years, previously working as a Resource/Booking Coordinator for the Health and Social Care team, and became the Training Coordinator in 2013. Her role involves looking after the training compliance of all foster carers across London, Midlands and the Southwest. Laura liaises with foster carers and their Supervising Social Worker on a regular basis to discuss training needs, and monitors updates to ensure Swiis foster carers training needs are being supported in a professional and efficient manner at all times.


Recruitment of foster carers

Help Swiis with our ongoing drive to recruit foster carers. If you know someone who is interested in fostering and feel they would make a good foster carer forward their details onto us at Swiis. If they are successful in being approved as a foster carer and after a year of having a placement, we will reward you with 1000.

Know of an upcoming event that you feel would be good for Swiis to attend? Let us know the details of the event and we will do our best to attend.

Want to be involved in attending events then please let us know. When attending events and speaking to the public, those interested find it useful speaking to foster carers themselves to get an overview of what is involved and their experiences.

Fancy holding a dinner party or a coffee morning and helping to promote Swiis? We will provide you with all the marketing material you require for your event, and we will compensate you for your time.

eventsUpcomingOur recruitment officers are always out and about promoting Swiis and fostering in the local community. Below are a few places you may see us in the next coming weeks. If you are there please do pop by and say hello!

Exeter Caravan ShowAsda CheltenhamAsda FiltonTesco Cardiff

4th & 5th October 16th October 21st October 27th October


Colouring competition

Swiis Foster Care southwest team travel all around the southwest attending different community events and shows. For the Bristol Balloon Fiesta we thought we would try something different and did a colouring competition for children with amazing prizes. We had an overwhelming response to this, and by midday Saturday (Day 3 of the fiesta) we had run out of all our 150 colouring sheets!! It was a great success, and not only did we see some amazing artwork created by the children who entered the competition, we also got the opportunity to speak to some wonderful people and give out lots of information about what fostering is really about. We hope that you all enjoyed the fiesta and the colouring competition as much as we did and we will definitely be doing it again!

The winners of the competition were all chosen by our Chief Executive Officer, Mr Tim Notchell, who was amazed at the time and talent that had gone into the entries, and found it extremely hard to decide, but finally came to his decision in the end!


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under 8s 1st Place

20 High street voucher

Ethan Betty - aged 7 years

2nd Place


Jessica

3rd Place


Ruby Cook - aged 3 years

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over 8s 1st Place


Joe Loveridge Aged 12

2nd Place


Lillie May Mills - aged 10

3rd Place


Polly Kennedy - aged 9

colouring competitionwinners



All the winners will be receiving their prize in the post in the next couple of days.

Lastly, the Swiis team had the pleasure of meeting an exceptional young man at the Balloon Fiesta, Kian, who thought that fostering is such a worthy cause that he stayed with us for a few hours at the stand helping us hand out leaflets and speak to the public. He thought it was a great job to do and wishes to become a foster carer himself when he grows up!

As a thank you for all his hard work and help on the day our CEO has decided that we would like to award him with a special Extraordinary Contribution Award and 20 High Street vouchers to go with it!

We hope you all enjoy your vouchers, and make sure you spend them wisely!

We hope to see you again soon out and about please do come and say hello if you see us and help us spread the word about fostering in your local area!

Kind regards

The Swiis Foster Care Southwest Team0117 906 5299 www.swiisfostercare.co.ukt vSwiisFosterCare

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The South West Summer Newsletter

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