October 2018 - Bootcamp

16th October 2018

We are off to Bootcamp. It's a little bit daunting and out of our comfort zone, but we have been chosen as part of a cohort of research projects to take part in Innovate to Save 2018.

The idea that we are presenting is The Fostering Network's Mockingbird model of foster care. We would be the first in Wales to implement this, but will it work?

Our application involved a presentation in Cardiff on 11th September where we presented the concept of Mockingbird. We described a real story of a child in foster care who had experienced 6 placement moves within 2 years ; the impact on the child and increasing costs for the local authority.

Fostering is an isolating role, caring for a challenging child 24/7 with limited autonomy. We can recruit new foster carers but they lack experience and few have bedroom space to keep siblings together. And our experienced carers are full. With every placement move, increases our use of external placements, far away at significantly higher cost. And for the child, they are experiencing multiple placement moves and having their life discussed using social work terminology.

The Mockingbird Model empowers foster carers to make decisions about the support they need, strengthen carers through peer support, puts an experienced carer at the heart of the constellation and follows the saying that it takes a village to raise a child. Carers would be surrounded by peer support 24/7 and for the child “respite” becomes a sleepover , “contact” becomes time with mum and they gain an extended family who care.

Originally developed in Seattle, it has been implemented in large local authorities in England, but will it work in Wales?

At the Bootcamp we were greeted by a team of researchers keen to help us to see if this will work in a small rural Welsh local authority. We are also joined by the other chosen cohort of projects.  We soon realise that there are great ideas out there to improve services and reduce costs for public services and we are not alone in our challenges.

24th October 2018

We attended The Fostering Network's Fostering Excellence awards in London. Almost as exciting as having 2 winners from Flintshire Fostering Service, we were on the same table as a Mockingbird hub carer from London. We immediately quizzed them on Mockingbird. Their positivity and stories were really motivating. They described how they support 10 fostering families with children of various ages. During the school summer holidays some of the carers felt daunted by the prospect of taking the children on holiday. Some single carers wondered how they would manage, some partners could not take time off work during the holidays - so as a constellation, they booked a group holiday to Spain. The hub carers were able to support the carers and give the children a family holiday experience and it was a great success.

26th October 2018

Our first planning day, after attending bootcamp. Post-its at the ready!

We met to plan our approach to the project; dividing it into 3 clear stages:

• Project Set up, by December 2018
• Protyping and Testing, by June 2019
• Write up, by August 2019

Most importantly, we allocated time in our busy diaries to work on the project.

The project plan is now typed up in Trello.

We have dates booked in to meet with the research team and The Fostering Network.

And our monthly project journal is here in a blog.