Foster Carers' TSD Standards covered:
- 1.2 Equality, inclusion and anti-discriminatory practice
- 1.3 Person centred approaches
- 1.4 Confidentiality and information sharing
- 2.1 Fostering role
- 2.3 Relationship with parents and others
- 2.4 Team working
- 3.3 Healthy care and medication
- 3.4 Personal safety and security
- 3.5 Risk assessment
- 4.1 Encourage communication
- 4.2 Knowing about communication
- 4.3 Communication with parents, families and friends
- 4.4 Communication with organisations
- 4.5 Principles of keeping good records
- 5.1 Attachment and stages of development
- 5.2 Resilience
- 5.3 Transitions
- 5.4 Supporting play, activities and learning
- 5.5 Supporting educational potential
- 5.6 Understanding contexts
- 5.8 Supporting disabled children and children with special emotional needs
- 6.2 Keeping children safe
- 6.4 Working with other agencies
- 7.1 Your role and approval as a foster carer
- 7.2 Being aware of the impact of fostering on your sons and daughters and extended family
- 7.3 Using support and supervision to develop your role
- 7.4 Meeting learning needs as part of continuing professional development (CPD)
Author Details
Name: Dr Samantha Piggott
Job Title: Forensic Psychologist
“My child flies away somewhere and I don’t know where she goes or what she’s doing!”
This was one of the comments a foster carer made to me when we were thinking about the little girl who had come to live with her 6 months ago. The carer described that at times “Milly” would seem to go off somewhere in her mind, seem absent, “zone out”, and her eyes would look a little glazed. I spoke with the carer about dissociation and how I wondered if this might be what Milly was experiencing. The carer had lots of questions: What is dissociation? Does my child dissociate? What triggers are there? When will it happen? What can I do to help?
These were fantastic questions and they led me to wonder how many other foster carers and adopters would wonder about this for their children. Needless to say, I wanted to be able to share my thoughts on this area and couldn’t think of a more useful way than via our fabulous PAFCA website! So, I will use my foster carers questions to offer a psychological perspective on dissociation coupled with what parents/carers can practically do to help a child they think might be experiencing dissociation.