Session 1/15

Introduction to your learning and development process

Please note: There are two ways to participate in this program.

1. With an instructor: A Fairstart Instructor trains a group of foster parents at regular meetings.
2. Self-study: a foster parent/family goes through the program online and decide which sessions to work with.

The Fairstart Foundation recommends working with an Instructor, but we know many foster parents work alone without support. For this reason, foster/kinship/adoptive families may study and use our programmes online free of charge.

This training programme has been developed and tested in daily practices by people like yourselves: Foster parents from many countries who work with children and young people in foster care.

A lot of international scientific results and child development psychology are part of the programme. All this knowledge has been transformed into practical advice and video demonstrations of daily care and ideas to inspire your practices. You don’t have to worry about the academic level – the programme will guide you through the basic theory and the recommended practices in a simple way!

When you go through the training sessions, you will be inspired and learn from the material and theory presented in the programme.

At the end of each session, you decide on how to practice what you learned during a session by designing a work plan. All this knowledge is only useful if it is used in your everyday work, and if you plan how to continuously improve your practices as a foster parent.

In this first training session you will be introduced to the Scorecard, to the basic ideas and content of this training program and to how you can work with the sessions. 
You will also be presented with an interview that you can conduct with another foster parent to understand how much important knowledge you already have from your own life and childhood – knowledge that is useful in your professional work as a foster parent. You will understand what is expected of you while you learn professional childcare theory in this programme, and how you and your instructor can support each other during the training process.

Aims of the session:
•  To understand how to work with the training programme, how to work with the sessions, and how to work between sessions.
•  To understand how your own life experiences provide you with valuable professional knowledge for foster care work.
•  To be introduced to the Scorecard (if you work with an instructor).