The path to
FOSTERING Empathy, understanding and the ability to listen are all skills necessary to be a successful foster carer, they are also skills you as a teacher already obtain. We speak to Barnardo’s Fostering about why teachers make the perfect foster carers
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veryday foster carers dedicate their time to helping children who can’t live with their biological families build a positive, fulfilled life. Barnardo’s is the UK’s largest independent not-for-profit fostering agency, connecting foster carers and children. There is always a need for foster carers and as a teacher you could be the perfect candidate.
UNDERSTANDING With prior training and experience,
teachers already have the skills that fostering agencies like Barnardo’s are looking for. “I think that one of the big things about teachers is that you have so much experience and understanding of children,” explains Eleanor Hendery, operations manager at Barnardo’s Fostering Glasgow. “[As a teacher, you] know how to communicate with [a young person], know how to engage with them to make them feel safe and you can understand them.” Being placed with the right foster
family can change a child’s life for the better. Where their behaviour might be perceived as difficult by someone who doesn’t have the experience, teachers can read between the lines. “Teachers understand all of the nonverbal communication that children give us, and understand the trauma that children have experienced,” says Eleanor. “[For this reason, you] aren’t as judgemental, if children have bad behaviour [you will] know it isn’t about naughty children – it’s about symptoms of how a child is feeling.
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