Bringing light, sharing love
Illuminance Fostering Services, recruits, trains and assesses prospective foster carers and supports them to meet requirements for approval as foster carers. In addition we also prepare foster carers for the fostering task once approved, provide ongoing training, support and supervision.
We work closely with all Local Authorities who have children placed with our foster carers, health, education, other agencies, and professionals to ensure that the services we offer are of a high standard and maximise children / young people's quality of life. We believe that every child needs to be part of a loving, emotionally warm, stable, secure home environment where they can thrive to their full developmental potential.
Our services
Respite
These placements provide a break for foster carers or parents / families who care for a child / young person with complex needs to prevent family breakdown and maintain children at home. These provisions are important in maintaining stability of care and usually form part of the child / young person’s care plan. It provides time apart; known as short break or respite care.
Long-term Foster placement
Every child / young person has a need for safety, security, and stability in order to be able to reach their potential, in all aspects of their development. This placement aims to provide children / young people with a stable, loving, secure foster family to be part of a family unit until they reach adulthood and beyond.
Short term / Emergency Placement
These placements provide a warm loving secure home for children / young people while plans are being made for their long-term future. This placement may be required on an emergency basis or with short notice. Either way we aim to provide every child / young person with a positive experience where their needs are prioritised, all adults around the child work in harmony with the child at the centre.
Sibling Placement
Siblings are children who share at least one birth parent and/or children who live or have lived for a significant period with other children in a family group. Sibling relationships are one of the most important transcendent relationships, they provide comfort, security, and reassurance. These placements allow sibling groups to maintain their relationship by staying together. For children who have experienced trauma staying together as a sibling group can be a protective factor as they provide support to one another through their shared experience. These placements thrive when the foster families have a passion for keeping sibling groups together where possible, have the skills to care for children with different age ranges / competing needs, and have the physical space and values necessary when promoting / enhancing individuality.
Parent and Child Placement
This type of fostering provides placement to parent(s) and their child / children. This placement can consist of a young mother and child, or young parent and child / children. The aim of this placement is for the parents to learn good parenting skills from the foster family as well as the foster carers monitor / assess parents’ capacity to care for their child / children safely to inform the Local Authority’s decision making.
To join our family of foster carers you may be:
Anyone over the age of 21 years and there is no cut off age limit.
Single, married, cohabiting, divorced or same sex relationship.
Male / female / nonbinary /transgender.
A parent with children at home / grown up children who have left home
Someone who has never had children or single parents.
To join our family of foster carers you will need:
To have passion for promoting what is in children’s best interest and protect them from all forms of harm.
A spare room in your home for the foster child.
Live in the UK with no visa restrictions.
Share our ethos of providing children / young people with emotional warmth, love, stability and security.
Disclose all criminal convictions of applicant and household members to enable a decision to be made in respect of an applicant’s suitability to become a foster carer.
Evidence good parenting skills.
Commit to fostering standards and on-going learning and development.
Ability to work in partnership with all professionals involved with the child and their birth parents / family.
Willingness to be an active member of our fostering family’s community.
Safeguarding Children’s Welfare
At Illuminance, we understand our responsibilities towards keeping children safe from harm and we have measures and systems in place to maximise the effectiveness of our practice.
We aim to ensure the highest standards of care and protection when working with children and young people. In line with statutory guidance from, “Working Together to Safeguard Children and Young People:www.workingtogetheronline.co.uk”,
these procedures provide a clear framework for staff to work together in safeguarding children and young people.
“We believe everyone has a responsibility to promote the welfare of all children and young people, to keep them safe and to practice in a way that protects them"
For services to be effective each professional and organisation should play their full part; and have a child-centred approach: for services to be effective they should be based on a clear understanding of the needs and views of children.
We want our young people to be healthy, well-rounded, resilient individuals who have been provided with the opportunities to realise their full potential.
Our goal is for every child to either return home blossoming, experience a stable permanent placement and/or achieve independent living -whichever meets their needs.
View our complaints procedure.
Our policies on Safeguarding and Standards are available upon request.
