Anchor Foster Care
Company size
60+ Employees
Industry
Childcare
About Us
Anchor Foster Care was founded in 2002 by husband and wife team, Florence and Alistair, who are both qualified social workers. They wanted to start a not-for-profit fostering agency which is child-centered and family-focused. Anchor offers Children Safety, Stability and Hope.
Our Aims & Objectives
To provide safety, stability and hope for the children who our foster carers look after.
Along with providing care, support, and expertise to our foster carers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. This is done through planning individualised care for the children placed with our foster carers
Our Values
Anchor Foster Care values the importance of providing effective services that enhance the life chances and opportunities of children and young people in our care.
Anchor Foster Care values the importance of providing effective services that enhance the life chances and opportunities of children and young people placed in our care.
Anchor Foster Care values the importance of providing effective services that enhance the life chances and opportunities of children and young people placed in our care.
Our values are centred around our foster families. We aim to attract people from diverse backgrounds. This enables us to provide the best foster parents to achieve a positive experience for children and young people. We welcome foster parents from different ethnicities, abilities and backgrounds.
Recruiting the right staff to recruit, train, support and monitor our foster parents is also vital to Anchor Values.
We believe that strong partnership working is key. Working with Local Authorities, birth parents (where permitted) and other relevant agencies is critical to ensure a comprehensive and effective approach to achieve our service provision.
What it’s like to work for us?
Testimonials
On receiving a gift from Anchor for creativity, commitment and hard work during the COVID crisis:
"I would like to thank the directors and staff at Anchor Foster Care for the lovely surprise gift that was sent to us. It was a boost to our moral. I cannot stress how much we appreciated it to know that we were thought of, not just because we are doing a job but because we are appreciated and that had been thought about. I hope our union with Anchor will continue for years to come."
Anchor is truly family orientated, and I felt like part of the family when I worked there. I looked forward to going to work as I had good relations with my colleagues, particularly in the social work team. I didn’t have any qualms with anyone.
I had a Practice Manager and a Fostering Manager, and I got on with both of them. I never felt anxious about asking anything. In fact, I felt encouraged when I asked questions about anything that was out of my depth, as they would always give constructive feedback. It was great to always be able to go to them for help and advice.
I wish Anchor all the best: I had to relocate to a town nearly 70 miles away to support family members but, if Anchor opened up an office in my new area I’d definitely look at coming back.
In the beginning, when we were thinking of fostering, it was hard to know who to work with. Do we go with local authority or an agency? After many phone calls and meetings with agencies, Anchor Foster Care came to visit. After we had our first meeting, all the worries and doubts were gone. We had this amazing image in our head of how we were going to help.
Then the process began. The Form F starts… hours and hours of paper work to have a deep look into our past. You even remember things you thought were long lost, your happiest memories and your worst. When you have a professional, but delightful, social worker the time flies. We were talking while eating cake and drinking tea, chatting about the good old days of being spoilt by mum and dad, playing with your brothers or sisters and taking holidays. It makes you realise what help you can give a child/children that have never had a holiday or seen mum, dad or siblings for ages. We have a lot of love to give. We have our son who is 10 (and a Pokémon fan), living full time with us, who is living evidence. He can’t wait for a play mate and he is telling all his mates. It even turned out his friend in school was going through the same process as us, so he was pleased. After the Form F and the 20 odd hours of visits comes the panel date. That was very scary, with 8 strange faces staring back at us. However, it’s a big relief after you do the introductions to find they are just normal friendly people doing an amazing job at finding the right people and the right environment for foster children. After getting a unanimous YES from panel. We left feeling emotional and amazing at the same time and we couldn’t wait to tell the rest of our family. We told everyone! It’s the best feeling; that all the hours leading up to this were worth every minute. Soon after, we received our ID badges in the post. It was a very happy morning!
Then came the first referral. We were excited and couldn’t wait to start. We said YES the same day. We had a 13-year-old transgender boy with us to begin our fostering journey. There were good days and bad days, but mainly good days. It made us think whether we had done the right thing or not, but we realised we had done the right thing and we wouldn’t change our minds.
Our first foster child wasn’t with us long. He moved on to another family closer to his friends and family. We spent Christmas alone, and in the new year, we had a 15-year-old emergency respite placement. She was with us for four days then went back to her foster family before coming back to us again for another four days. She was great. Everyone loved her. She had everyone laughing and loved our two dogs. Whilst she was still with us we also had another respite placement, a teenager of 16. She was a breath of fresh air, wanting to help with cleaning and cooking. We all got on so well. Our 10 year old had two big sisters, and he was very happy. Half way through her stay she did mention our sexuality. She couldn’t understand why we wanted to be together! She said, in her country, this is not possible, but she doesn’t mind and she is happy that we were happy. This was very nice to hear. This fun had to end when our first planned long term placement was due to arrive. Both girls departed and our 10-year-old foster boy arrived. He is also a Pokémon fan, and it was like him and our son already knew each other. We are now two weeks into our first long term placement and it’s going great.
We are living proof you can achieve your goals! Don’t let anything stand in your way! Follow your heart. Anchor Foster Care are now our second family. Thanks guys!
The type of jobs we recruit for?
Anchor Foster Care are looking for new or existing transferring Fostering Families
We are also looking for Form F Assessors and Support workers
Benefits
Flexible schedule
Work from home
Company events
Referral programme
