Future Focused

Shaping Tomorrow: Skylark Fostering's 'Future Focused' Initiative

We believe we have a vital responsibility to improve the life opportunities of children in foster care, affirming that with the appropriate support, every child can reach their full potential.

Skylark's ‘Future Focused’ programme is a central driver for encouraging aspiration and consequently improving and enhancing the career prospects of young people in our care.

Our 'Future Focused' programmes starting point is to actively engage and consult with children and young people to determine their interests and ambitions. We then encourage and supporting these by connecting them to opportunities within their local communities via clubs and organisations.

Consultation with our looked-after children doesn’t stop there though. We ensure that their voices are truly heard with regard to their experiences of becoming a looked-after child and living with a foster family. We establish ‘Fostering Reps’ who meet with our Registered Manager to raise any issue they like. We also work to ensure their voices are heard nationally through such organisations as the Children’s Commissioner:

IMO - A voice for teenagers in care and care leavers (childrenscommissioner.gov.uk)

We also look to provide additional support to improve educational outcomes by offering tailored interventions such as one-to-one tutoring and extracurricular activities from music lessons to sports coaching. We expect our foster carers to fully engage with educational settings and will support this partnership by attending all meetings and developing a genuine partnership with teachers and the wider school setting, ensuring our children take advantage of all that is on offer.

Our ‘Dare to Dream’ element will offer children and young people an opportunity to see where their interests could take them. This could be a ‘behind the scenes’ visit to a top football club for footballers interested in developing a career in the football related industry, through to visit to ‘Comicon’ where gamers could learn about a career in that industry. We have seen where such experiences have been transformative in terms of motivation and inspiring hope for a better future.

‘Future Focused’ also looks to arrange volunteer work, and part-time jobs for older children; research shows that such experiences are hugely impactful for confidence and self-esteem as well as being great preparation for the world of work.

We also provide and run school holiday initiatives, such as first aid courses, interview skills workshops and ‘what to do in an emergency’. These are great fun but also fantastic learning opportunities.