Types of Placements
CCF offers a wide range of placements for children and young people of all ages with foster carers. All placements are ‘matched’ to ensure a good relationship between the needs of children and young people and the skills and experience of foster carers to meet those needs.
Many CCF foster carers have extensive experience and/or training in specialised areas of care e.g. caring for those who have been sexually abused: dealing with challenging behaviour.
All placements must be negotiated through the child or young person’s care authority (the Local Authority/Health & Social Services Trust), either through individual placement contract, or as part of a wider contract of service provision commissioned by the Care Authority.
CCF has specifically designated ‘Referral Officer’s who are the first point of contact for enquiries about placement choices.
For enquiries about ‘bespoke’ service provision CCF Business Managers are available to discuss customer needs and contracts options.
Long Terms Placements
Many CCF foster carers have a definite interest in providing placements for children/young people or sibling groups on a long term/permanent fostering basis, usually for the remainder of a child(s)/young person(s) time within the care system.
Bridging Placements
A bridging placement generally forms part of a longer-term plan for a child or young person. In such placements CCF foster carers work with children/young people and their families, to prepare children/young people for joining adoptive or long term/permanent fostering families or for moving to a semi-independent or an independent living arrangement.
Assessment Placements
These usually last up to three months and during this period a detailed assessment is made of the physical, emotional, educational and therapeutic needs of a child or young person, including his or her ability to be cared for within a foster family and the specific support services that will be required.
Interim and final assessment meetings provide vital information for longer term planning. Written assessment reports are included in this service
Short Term Placements
CCF foster carers undertake task centred work with children/young people and their families in situations where the purpose of a placement, and the intended duration, are explicit or can be estimated with relative accuracy.
Emergency Placements
As an agency we are experienced in providing emergency placements, these can be from one night, through to when it is assessed to be ok for a young person to return back to their previous carer.
Parent and Child Placements
On occasions we are asked to provide a placement for a parent and child. This can be for a variety of reasons i.e. a young mother/mother has had previous children removed from her care. We consider this a specialist placement and as such extra support will be offered.
Solo Placements
As an agency we are in a position to offer solo placements. This can be either through negotiation with the carer to not take any other placements; or with carers who have been approved for only one child. Please ask the referral co-ordinator for more details
