Why it feels great to transfer to Affinity

Making the decision to become a foster carer is not just a career choice. It’s a realisation that you want to target your working life towards nurturing children and young people to become the best they can be. At Affinity, we regularly welcome experienced and established foster carers into our family. After all, when the average Brit has six jobs across their lifetime, changing jobs doesn’t mean changing careers. It can mean finding a space that supports and develops your existing skillset.

Affinity Fostering has the benefit of being a truly independent fostering agency, being privately owned by the directors who work day-in-day-out in the company. As an independent agency Affinity are also able to offer a different service to Local Authorities.

As a truly independent fostering agency we are able to offer a comprehensive package to our carers, which goes far beyond a weekly allowance. Affinity also provides exceptional training and support. All of our carers have dedicated support workers, and our social workers have suitable workloads, allowing them to spend more time with our foster carers. As one of our carers recently commented, “The support has been fantastic. The training has been great…I feel a part of the Affinity family, which is lovely”.

The support we offer goes above and beyond the standard relationship between a social worker and carer (as you can see from our video interview of Lesley & Linda) because we believe that everyone in the Affinity family should be supported and listened to, “At Affinity, someone is always on hand to talk to, no matter if it is about the child in your care or just about you”. In the same way that our carers nurture and listen to the children in their care, so we’re always on hand to have our ears bent by our carers. That’s what we do in our family.

Another benefit of choosing an independent agency like Affinity is that we are more likely to be able to offer older child and family placements. This is because local authorities can find it hard to place older children, meaning they come into our care. Our team work tirelessly to ensure that the young people we are responsible are placed in the best environments to help them thrive. Affinity’s ethos also maintains that it’s the foster family’s decision whether they welcome a young person into their home. This means that we don’t accept emergency night placements.

So, what about existing foster carers who already have a child or young person in their care? It’s still possible to transfer. In every situation, the welfare of the child is our highest concern. Our team follow all the nationally set protocols to ensure that any transfer is fair and legal and that the transfer is a good fit for all concerned.

If you are an existing foster carer and are looking to transfer to a family orientated, independent fostering agency, our team are happy to have a chat with you and guide you through the process.