Training for Supervisors and Foster Family Consultants seeks to meet the needs for continuing education of professionals who supervise and consult foster families. It is being implemented jointly by partner organisations in three countries – Bulgaria, Poland and Romania – over the period 2013-2015. The project is funded by the EULifelong Learning Programme, Learning Partnerships, Subprogramme Grundtvig.

The Bulgarian partner is the Social Activities and Practices Institute (SAPI), the funding being managed by the Human Resource Development Centre. The Romanian partner is Fundatia Internationala pentru Copil si Familie (the International Foundation for Children and Families), whilst the Polish one is Towarzystwo Nasz Dom (Our HomeAssociation).

Project activities are primarily aimed at two large target groups:

–               professionals who would like to further focus their professional skills on working with foster families;

–               foster families in Bulgaria, Poland and Romania.

The project’s specific objective is to expand the competencies of specialists who work with foster families, and via them, the competencies of foster families themselves.

Foster care is a relatively new social service available in these three partner countries. It is an important part of the process of deinstitutionalization of children, actively taking place in the three countries, where a comprehensive reform in the social sphere and in the area of child protection is underway. The lack of adequately approved professional foster care standards, coupled with the fact that foster parents should have knowledge and skills in the field of child development, places them in a peculiar position to act as professionals of sorts who provide care for children at risk. Compared to teachers, social workers, psychologists, paediatricians and psychiatrists, the foster parent is regarded as some sort of “paraprofessional”. The professionalisation of the foster care service brings to the fore the need for provision of consulting, training and supervision also to foster families for a period of at least 2 or 3 years, in order to increase their knowledge and skills, their adequacy and expertise.

Supervision however, is a process of support traditionally targeted at “true professionals”  and very rarely at foster families. This foregrounds even more the need for an increased number of well-trained supervisor professionals who are to support foster families too.

This innovative, partnership project seeks to produce internationally trained supervisors and consultants who will train foster families directly via consulting and supervision. Designing a common training programme for professionals is part of the continuing training in the area of foster care.

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.