Kent Foster Care Association KFCA

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    KFCA AGM minutes (February 2008)



    KFCA News Letter (January 2008)



    Preventing Placement Breakdown (November 2007)



    KFCA Annual Report (February 2007)



    KFCA News Letter (February 2007)



    KFCA News Letter (November 2006)



    Green Paper - Care Matters (November 2006)



    KFCA News Letter (Autumn 2006)



    The DfES published the National Minimum Fostering Allowance & Fostering Payment Systems,
    Good Practice Guidelines. (DfES - 27 July 2006)



    KFCA Questionaire (Questionaire June 2006)




    KFCA Summer Fete (Fete 25 June 2006)



    KFCA News Letter (June 2006)



    KFCA News Letter (April 2006)


    The Fostering Network National Forum In London (March 2006)


    KFCA Membership (Who is a member)


    KFCA News Letter (March 2006)


    Gary Dobner has been very busy developing the new web site. While it is still early days, there is sufficient now online that we would ask all committee members to review and feed back to Gary. Gary will announce the availability of the new site at the Advisory Board meeting on 13 March. A further announcement to all carers will be done in the next newsletter. Please note that the development of a website is work intensive. We welcome suggestions and will progress further develop over the coming weeks. The project will be continually ongoing. Feedback is critical if we are to meet expectations.

    KFCA Annual General Meeting

    The first AGM for the KFCA took place on Wednesday 08 February 2006 at the Lenham Community Centre. We was delighted with the turn out. There were 58 people present with 46 of them being foster carers. The theme of the event was ‘Promoting Professionalism in Foster Care.

    After a brief introduction to the KFCA, Liz Totman presented the new organisation of Children Services which replaces the blanket term of Social Services. While the new organisation will not impact on the role of the foster carers, it is aimed at improving co-ordination of services between the various departments dealing with children’s requirements.

    Teresa Vickers then presented the results of a lengthy investigation into foster care payments. The new Payment for Skills (P4S) is aimed at encouraging foster carers to take up training on offer and participating in Support Group meetings. It will recognise the additional effort expended by those carers taking part in initiatives such as mentoring. The new method of calculating the reward element of payments will be introduced later in 2006. A full announcement of the methodology will be issued by Teresa to all carers.

    Note that the maintenance element of payment is not affected. Any changes to this will await the Department of Educations publication of recommended minimum payments for foster care. A consultation paper is now available online with a final cut off date 25 April 2006. It can be viewed at http://www.dfes.gov.uk/consultations

    The next speaker was David Hadjicostas from The Fostering Network. David is the president of The Fostering Network and he gave an excellent presentation on their function as well as giving the KFCA the benefit of his support and enthusiasm. The Fostering Network has lobbied the government for changes in pay and recognition for foster carers. He noted the changing nature of fostering and the need for carers to undertake training to enable them to keep apace. For more information on the Fostering Network and their campaigns see their web site http://www.fostering.net

    Our focused 2006 main projects were also aired, for the full rundown click here.


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