Training and progression
Quick overview
Training grows with you
Learning starts during assessment and continues throughout your fostering journey, helping you build confidence, knowledge and practical skills.
What will you learn?
How you'll develop:
Through training, reflection, support from your Supervising Social Worker, peer learning and real-life fostering experience.
Qualifications and support
Opportunities include Level 3 and Level 5 Diplomas in Applied Therapeutic Practice, backed by our therapy team, regional support and 24/7 help.
Got Questions?
Book a discovery chat with a member of our team at a time that suits you.
Training that grows with you
You don’t need to know everything about fostering before you begin. In fact, nobody ever reaches a point where there is nothing more to learn.
Children are individuals, circumstances change and even very experienced foster parents can find themselves facing situations they haven’t encountered before. That’s why learning at Flourish is designed to continue throughout your fostering journey.
We begin with the knowledge every foster parent needs, then build on it through specialist training, recognised qualifications, reflection and the everyday professional support around you.
The aim isn’t simply to complete courses. It’s to help you understand the children in your care, feel more confident in difficult situations and continue developing as a foster parent.
Some children stay with a foster family for a few days or weeks. Others need a home for several years or until adulthood. Whatever the length of the placement, the child needs to feel safe, included and cared for.
Your learning starts during assessment
Training begins before you’re approved, giving you the opportunity to understand more about the realities and responsibilities of fostering before welcoming a child into your home.
You’ll cover the essential areas required of foster parents, including safeguarding, first aid, health and safety, attachment, fostering legislation and understanding the experiences of children in care.
This stage is about preparation rather than expecting you to arrive with all the answers. It’s a chance to ask questions, explore different situations and begin building the knowledge you’ll draw on once you’re fostering.
It’s also one of the first opportunities to meet other people on the same journey and begin becoming part of the wider Flourish community.
Developing a therapeutic understanding
Because Flourish is a therapeutic fostering service, specialist therapeutic learning is an important part of our training programme.
Children who have experienced trauma, loss or disrupted relationships may communicate what they’re feeling in ways that aren’t always easy to understand. Our training helps foster parents look beyond the behaviour itself and think about the child’s experiences, emotions and needs.
Our therapy team develops and contributes to specialist courses in areas including Therapeutic Story Making, No Bad Parts and Theraplay, alongside wider learning about attachment, trauma and therapeutic parenting.
We also work with Antser to provide virtual reality experiences that help foster parents consider situations from a child’s perspective. Used alongside discussion and reflection, this can offer a powerful insight into how children may experience the adults and environments around them.
Learning doesn't only happen on a course
Formal training matters, but some of the most useful learning happens around the realities of the child you are caring for.
Your Supervising Social Worker will support you to reflect on what’s happening within your placement and think through challenges as they arise. When additional therapeutic insight would be helpful, our therapy team can work alongside you and your Social Worker to explore what may be happening for the child.
Support groups and conversations with other foster parents create another valuable opportunity to share experience and learn from people who understand the role.
We want Flourish to be somewhere it’s safe to say, “I’m not sure what to do here.” Asking for another perspective isn’t a sign that you’re getting it wrong; it’s part of thoughtful, professional fostering.
Recognised qualifications and progression
For foster parents who want to deepen their knowledge further, Flourish provides opportunities to work towards recognised qualifications in Applied Therapeutic Practice, including Level 3 and Level 5 Diplomas.
These programmes allow foster parents to explore therapeutic practice in greater depth and build on the knowledge they’ve developed through training and real-life fostering experience.
Progression doesn’t have to mean following one particular route, though. For some foster parents, achieving a formal qualification is an important goal. For others, it’s about growing in confidence, developing expertise in particular areas or feeling better equipped to support children with increasingly complex needs.
Our role is to help you keep developing in a way that is meaningful to you and useful to the children you care for.
Training backed up by support
Even the best training is only useful if you have support when you need to put that learning into practice.
That’s why training at Flourish sits alongside dedicated Supervising Social Work, access to our in-house therapy team, regional support and 24/7 help when something can’t wait until the next working day.
As Flourish foster parents Liz and Ed explain:
“Flourish has been amazing — there’s so much training online, plus in-person sessions on different topics. And knowing there’s always someone at the other end of the phone if we need advice is invaluable.”
We think that’s how learning should work: giving foster parents knowledge and confidence, while making sure they never feel they’re expected to figure everything out alone.
You deserve to feel heard, valued and properly supported.
Speak to us confidentially about a possible transfer.