“Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes.”

(Peter Drucker)

At Acorns, we believe that an excellent training programme ensures that you can work with children competently and confidently to build their self-esteem and help them to re-establish their trust in adults. We are passionate about placement stability and know that well-trained foster carer’s have more successful outcomes than those that stagnate.

We have mandatory courses that we expect you to complete within the first 12 months of your fostering career and we constantly seek new and interesting topics to deliver to you. All training events are currently held at our head office in Darlington which is very central for those living anywhere in the North East.

Our training courses do not have a “pass” requirement as we do not want people to feel worried about learning new skills. Our skilled and experienced trainers will work with all of you individually to ensure that our training is relevant and accessible and your link worker will help you to utilise the training in your daily practice.

Our training courses are either delivered by our own staff, or are road-tested by our management team to ensure quality and relevance. Foster carers are consulted about their preferences and any gaps in their skills and experience are identified through our monthly supervision groups or individual supervision sessions.

Our mandatory courses include the pre-approval “skills to foster” training, First Aid and Food hygiene and post-approval, we provide brain development and attachment theory training as standard, believing that a working knowledge of these theories is fundamental to good fostering practice.

Our training programme is subject to constant review and improvement with new courses being introduced as and when a need for them is identified or a new course is sourced that broadens the knowledge of our staff and foster carers.