At Phoenix Community Care (PCC), unsung heroes, the backstage people play a pivotal role in our operations. While you may not directly interact with them, their contributions are indispensable in enabling PCC to deliver high-quality service to those we aim to assist.

So, we have people beavering away in finance, administration, and IT that you may be unaware of.

One of these crucial areas is the PCC’s Fostering Panel. I’d like to take this opportunity to shed some light on these individuals, especially since the panel’s composition has recently undergone significant changes.

PCC’s Fostering Panel is a legal requirement for foster care agencies.  If you foster for us, you will have met them, but if not, you probably don’t know much about these hard workers.

If you apply to PCC to become a foster carer with us, you go through a process called Form F.  This requires many visits from one of the PCC’s social workers to you as an applicant. At the end of that process, Form F is presented by the social worker to the PCC’s Fostering Panel. They also go through annual reviews, change of approval and keep on the news of what the foster agency is working on.

The panel members represent different areas of expertise, such as someone who has previously been fostered, a person who was a birth child of a foster care family, an educator, a lawyer, a medical person, social workers who are not social workers for PCC, and Foster carers who are not PCC foster carers.  

The panel checks the social worker’s work on Form F and then meets with the prospective carers.  If they agree with the recommendations of the foster carers, then they recommend the applying person to PCC’s Decision Maker as a prospective career.  The Decision Maker then goes through Form F and the work of the panel, and if they agree with everyone, the prospective foster carer gets a nice acceptance letter from the Decision Maker and begins the foster journey with us.

I am highlighting the panel in this issue because, after serving as the chair for almost 20 years, Dr. Mike Walters retired at the End of 2023. We want to record a big thank you for his faithful work. We will miss him. Thanks, Mike. You have done a sterling job. 

Mike has spent many late evenings steering the Panel discussion and questioning over the years as PCC’s foster care contingency has grown. Currently, some 41 people are registered with us as foster carers. 

So, a great big thank you to Mike and a welcome to our new Chair, Emily Brearley. Emily is originally from the USA  and is trained dance therapist. Emily has been a panel member for a long time and is a therapist who works with young people in schools. She is already doing a sterling job.