SWIIS is dedicated to creating the best opportunities for children and young people in foster care:
A wide range of placements are available including:
- on a short term, longer term, or planned respite basis.
- bridging or other task centred placements.
- for all ages including older teenagers, sibling groups and children with disabilities.
- supported by structured programmes with a focus on managing risk and maximising opportunity.
- including assessment and full reports where required.
- short notice (unplanned) placements subject to relevant risk assessments and the availability of suitable carers.
To find out the range of services on offer in your area please go to your local page.
In many areas SWIIS has pioneered a genuinely multi-disciplinary team approach with a focus on providing integrated services. This includes:
- a comprehensive package of social work, education and health
- working in close partnership with placing authority social workers, local education, health and therapy providers
- each child or young person has a care package that addresses all of their needs
- we offer best value for children, carers and placing authorities alike
- we work with local authorities to help them meet required Performance Indicators
- our placements provide demonstrable positive indicators of improvement for young people in the five key outcome areas: being healthy, staying safe, enjoying and achieving, making a positive contribution and achieving economic well-being
- all SWIIS carers have extensive pre and post approval training – including the opportunity to take relevant social care training modules and NVQ programmes. Priority is given to issues such as Safer Caring and Managing Challenging Behaviour
Quality Carers
All of SWIIS's foster carers all are able to draw on and learn from the experience within the team.
Over 60% of our carers have been with SWIIS for two years or more and have the experience of the many successful placements we have undertaken in the past.
SWIIS Foster Care is unique in that it has a positive policy of not seeking to attract existing carers from local authorities.
Support for carers is a key priority; we want to ensure stability and continuity for children and young people, with carers who feel confident and positive about their role.
Therapeutic input and counselling can be accessed as necessary for children and young people and has also been found to be beneficial for carers managing difficult or traumatic issues in specific placements.
We provide:
- realistic levels of pay
- full out of hours support
- respite care and other resources designed to retain and reward our excellent carers
‘Foster caring has been harder than we expected but more worthwhile than anything we could imagine – and SWIIS helped to make that so..’’
‘My experience with SWIIS is that they give you the best training, explain everything, good backup and good link workers. Just everything!’’
