Why Flourish?
Flourish is a specialist fostering service built around relationships. We combine therapeutic expertise with dependable social work, thoughtful training, practical support and regional communities where foster parents can feel known.
A fostering service where people know you, support you and work together
Choosing a fostering service is a big decision. You want to know that you’ll receive excellent professional support, but you also want to know what that support will actually feel like when you’re living the everyday reality of fostering.
At Flourish, we’ve always believed the two should go together.
We combine experienced social work, therapeutic expertise, high-quality training and practical support with something that is just as important: genuine relationships. We want our foster parents to know the people around them, feel comfortable asking for help and have confidence that the different parts of Flourish are working together on behalf of their family.
That personal approach has been important to us from the beginning, and it’s something we’re determined to protect as Flourish grows.
A whole team around you
Your Supervising Social Worker will be one of the most important people in your fostering journey, getting to know you, your household and the children you care for. But your support doesn’t begin and end with one person.
Our Registered Managers and regional teams provide local leadership and bring foster families together. Our in-house therapists are available when a situation would benefit from specialist therapeutic thinking. Our training team helps foster parents continue developing their knowledge and confidence, while colleagues in placements, finance, recruitment and administration make sure the practical side of fostering works as it should.
Each team has its own expertise, but they aren’t intended to operate in isolation. Good support comes from people talking to one another, sharing their knowledge and understanding the family behind the placement.
Truly therapeutic fostering
Our therapeutic approach is an important part of what makes Flourish different, but being therapeutic doesn’t mean turning your family home into a clinical environment.
It means understanding that children’s experiences can affect the way they see relationships, respond to uncertainty and express how they’re feeling. It means looking beyond behaviour, remaining curious about what might be happening underneath it and helping children experience relationships that are safe, predictable and dependable.
Our therapists bring specialist expertise to that work, but therapeutic thinking runs more widely through Flourish. It influences our training, social work, matching, supervision and the way we communicate with and support families.
For us, therapeutic fostering works best when expertise strengthens ordinary family relationships rather than replacing them.
A community as well as a service
Fostering can be enormously rewarding, but there will also be times when it helps to be around people who simply understand.
Across our regions, we create opportunities for foster parents and families to meet through training, support groups, events and activities. Those relationships can become an important source of friendship, reassurance and shared experience.
Our local teams are central to creating that sense of community. As Flourish grows, we want foster parents to continue feeling that they belong to something personal; somewhere people know their name, understand their journey and notice when they might need a little more support.
We take foster parenting seriously
We see foster parents as professionals and important members of the team around a child. The role requires skill, commitment, judgement and continued learning, and our offer reflects that.
Alongside professional fees and practical allowances, Flourish provides 21 days’ paid respite, 24/7 support, ongoing specialist training and opportunities to work towards recognised qualifications in therapeutic practice.
Just as importantly, we want foster parents to feel that their knowledge is respected. You are the person sharing everyday life with the child in your care, so your observations, instincts and experiences need to be part of the conversation.
Change a child's life as a therapeutic foster parent.
Speak to us confidentially about fostering