The way children are introduced to new carers is transformed

A woman who grew up in foster care before becoming a foster parent herself has welcomed the roll out of a new digital platform transforming the way children are introduced to their new foster family.

Foster Wales has launched a new way to allow a young person to look through the profile of a foster carer before they meet them. The Big Welcome platform allows children soon to move to a new foster carer the chance to get to know the personality and home life of their new carer, and any family members or pets they might be about to share a home with.

This Children of Foster Carers Week (from October 13 to October 19), Foster Wales is celebrating how the digital platform has helped children to feel welcomed into a new home. Since its pilot in 2024, nearly 600 foster carers in Wales have registered on the Big Welcome portal.

Back to basics

Amy Davies first went into foster care aged 11 before living with her nan from the age of 16. Amy then began her own journey as a foster carer by caring for her young sister as a kinship carer at just 21 years old. She’s now been fostering for 23 years, mainly caring for older children with her husband Gavin.

As an adult with care experience, Amy said it’s important that children in her care feel just as loved as her own children, aged 16, 8, and five weeks old, and for them to be given the space to adjust to a different family life.

“It’s important that they feel like they matter, that they have people who are on their side no matter what,” Amy said.

“We do for them everything we would do for our own children. You sometimes have to go back to basics with them and almost teach them how to be loved.”

Amy and Gavin have usually fostered teenagers, taking care to welcome them into the home sensitively. The couple have a lot of pets including a dog, two cats, two chickens, a pond with coy carp, a tortoise, and a ball python.

Amy said the Big Welcome will help children feel more at ease before meeting a carer and any new foster siblings.

“When I was younger and going into foster care, I think if I was able to have a look at who I was about to meet it would have made me feel less anxious. I was usually quite anxious about who they were or what they were like, but seeing a profile helps to take away a bit of that fear of the unknown.”

Creating trust

Developed in partnership between charity Action For Children and social innovation agency Super Being Labs, the Big Welcome was designed through a series of workshops and 1:1 interviews with 120 care experienced young people and more than 75 foster carers. The research asked how a foster carer could make a child feel welcome and what made a young person feel anxious. The designers addressed identified needs including ensuring a child could see what their bedroom would look like. It gives children the chance to begin building a connection that could be life changing.

Em Hattersley spent time in foster care as a teenager, having experienced periods of homelessness from the age of 13. Now 29, she works for Cardiff University on the Confident Futures project supporting young care experienced people like herself.

“I think the Big Welcome platform is fantastic,” Em said. “It would have helped me so much.

“When I was going through my experience with foster care I was given minimal information about the people I was going to live with and it’s really hard to digest that.

“But the Big Welcome creates trust. Their whole world has already turned upside down and just to be able to see their new room would help that anxiety. I have got a seven-year-old now and I know the value of visual storytelling for kids of a younger age.”

Alastair Cope, Head of Foster Wales, said: “As the national network for not-for-profit local authority fostering services, Foster Wales is committed to building better futures for children and young people needing care.

“Our children told us that they wanted more information on where they were going to live. They wanted to know what their bedroom would look like, who the family pet was and what the foster carers like to do in their spare time.

“We’ve already heard from our social workers about what a huge difference this is making. The Big Welcome is providing the reassurance and connection needed to get a relationship off to the best possible start.”

To find out more about becoming a foster carer in Wales visit fosterwales.gov.wales