Freephone: 0800 0124278 My CFC | Login Home About Us Foster With Us! News & Events Jobs Contact Us Statement Of Purpose And Function Ofsted Reports Governance Fostering Through Social Enterprise Children England An Award Winning Charity Local Authority Placements Community Family Care KEEP Training Give A Book Get in contact if you feel that you could foster. contact us>> KEEP Training KEEP Training Programmes for Foster Carers and Kinship Carers KEEP Standard is a 16-week support group programme designed for mainstream foster and kinship carers who have children placed with them aged between five and twelve years. KEEP utilises the same principles and theory as Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care but without the whole team around the child approach. It is one of a series of evidence-based intervention models being funded by the Department for Education. The intention is to build on the pilot and current programmes so that KEEP foster care support groups can become mainstreamed 'business as usual' across the country as part of a continuum of focused services. Achieving this will present challenges in how to scale up effective practices so they are available to all children, carers and families who could benefit from them, and in how to align systems/structures to support sustainability of this programme. KEEP Standard The KEEP sessions aim to: increase the parenting skills of carers decrease the number of placement disruptions improve outcomes for children maintain placement stability. KEEP aims to accomplish these goals by: Strengthening foster and kinship carers’ confidence and skills so they can promote change in their child’s difficult behaviours. Helping foster and kinship carers use effective parent management strategies and provide them with support to do so. Promoting the idea that foster and kinship carers can serve as key agents of change for children. How does the programme operate? KEEP is a 90 minute weekly group programme led by a trained facilitator plus a co-facilitator which runs over 16 weeks. The programme has a specific 13 week curriculum, and extra sessions are built in to allow flexibility according to need. Using pro-social and positive approaches that focus on what we want children to do as opposed to what we don’t want them to do, the aim is to build self-esteem and self-belief in their ability to change and the carers ability to change. As well as this, facilitators make a weekly telephone call to carers to track a range of 40 specific behaviours and ask carers to complete a 'strengths and difficulties' questionnaire, plus a Parenting Scale. There is support from the National Team in England which is collecting all the research data and weekly Skype consultation for facilitators with consultants in Oregon from the Oregon Social Learning Centre. Once the 16 week group has ended the agency may wish to set up periodic support groups led by the KEEP facilitators for the carers. These groups serve to refresh carers about the KEEP techniques and positive approach and provide opportunities to problem solve current challenges. Additional Information Community Foster Care and Community Family Care are joining the KEEP National Implementation Service headed by Rosemarie Roberts. We will be collecting data from all groups and sending this to both the National Implementation Service as well as to OSLC in Portland, USA. All sessions will be recorded and the content will be uploaded to OSLC via a secure system which ensures fidelity but also allows the consultants to give direct feedback to the course facilitator. The weekly forms completed by a member of our KEEP team with each foster carer will be scanned and is part of the data collected. All data collected will contribute to both KEEP model fidelity requirements and to the internal service evaluation of KEEP outcomes in the UK which is being completed by the National Implementation Service (England). All staff who are providing training will receive regular support from both the National Implementation Service and also OSLC. Booking a Course If anyone is interested in commissioning a course or discussing the benefits of KEEP further, please contact Becky Pearson on beckyp@communityfostercare.co.uk or 07726 357965. About Us Chief Exec's Blog Future Events Meet The Team FAQs Read more >> Ofsted reports Read more >> Follow/join us on: Work for us Twitter feed View all available jobs at Community Foster Care Latest tweet: Our Cumbria team will have an information stand at @theforumbarrow on Weds 15 April from 11am-2pm. Please come & talk to us about fostering. Posted: 10/04/2015 Did you know. In the UK there are currently over 80,000 looked after children and young people in public care. Over 60% of looked after children are living with foster carers. Contact us | Site map | Cookies | Report an error Web design by Bubblegate © Community FosterCare 2011