Building brighter futures: Star Fostering and CATCH celebrate a shared vision

Star Fostering is a ‘family owned agency’ built on the belief that a good family life is essential for children to thrive. Their mission is clear: to find the best foster carers to provide excellent care and support to children and young people

A model of care built on family and expertise

Star Fostering provides a model of care that successfully replicates an extended family environment. They were recently rated ‘Good’ across all areas in their November 2024 Ofsted inspection. This success is a testament to the dedication of the leaders, managers, and staff.

Their commitment to achieving the best outcomes for children is reflected in several key areas:

• Trauma-informed practice: The agency ensures staff and carers are skilled in therapeutic parenting, commissioning a therapeutic parenting coach and trauma-informed consultant for training and one-to-one consultation.
• Sibling bonds: They strive to keep siblings together where appropriate, recognising the lifelong impact of separation. For example, the manager helped one family increase their living space to keep a sibling group of five together long-term.
• Empowering carers: Foster carers receive regular, high-quality supervision and support, helping them build resilience to secondary trauma.
• Innovative support: Star Fostering runs the Starfish Enterprise Project, which provides clustered support, regular social activities, and respite care, creating an ‘extended family situation’ that reduces isolation for foster families.
• Child-centredness: One panel member noted that ‘Child centredness permeates through everything they do’. Children are regularly consulted and involved in shaping the agency, including speaking to prospective carers at the ‘Skills to Foster’ course.

Sharon North, Founder and Registered Manager comments on why CATCH:

“We are very excited to partner with PACT for the CATCH training. It’s important for our foster carers and staff to stay up to date with relevant, trauma-informed practice, and the webinars, podcasts and interviews available through CATCH will further enrich our training programme. This partnership reflects our ongoing commitment to ensuring our carers and team have access to high-quality learning opportunities that strengthen their skills and, ultimately, improve outcomes for the children and young people we support.”

Ray Vernon- Digital Partnership Executive for CATCH, applauds Star Fostering’s proactive approach:

“Star Fostering’s journey is truly inspiring. Their commitment to investing in trauma-informed practice and their innovative Starfish project demonstrates a genuine dedication to the long-term well-being of their families. They ensure their carers receive the high-quality training and support needed to provide therapeutic care. This focus on ‘Building Brighter Futures’ is completely aligned with our mission at CATCH, and we are proud to be supporting their team and their devoted foster carers.”

We look forward to many more years of working together with Star Fostering to ensure children and young people receive excellent care and can achieve their full potential.