What Kind of Therapeutic Needs Do Children in Foster Care Have?

Our first relationships as children teach us about the world, how to relate to others, and become the blueprint for the connections we make as we grow. Sadly, many children in care have experienced relationships that have been abusive, neglectful or unpredictable, which can make it difficult for them to trust others and form healthy bonds.

When these children move into care, building strong attachments that help them move from trauma to trust is a fundamental therapeutic need and is at the centre of supporting their healing.

As a therapeutic foster parent, you’ll support children in your care with this need by creating stability through routine, providing consistent care, and always doing what you say you will. You’ll advocate for your child’s needs and lean on our therapists, who can help your child recover from their early childhood experiences.

We are all born with the same emotions as adults, but without the ability to understand what they actually mean and how to manage them.

Children rely on their caregivers to regulate their emotions and teach them what they are through co-regulation, until they learn how to regulate themselves. Many foster children have missed out on this crucial stage of development, making it difficult for them to manage big feelings.

Learning to self-regulate is an essential skill that will help your child build resilience, understand their triggers, and return to a calm state when their fight-or-flight response is activated.

This will help them in their relationships, at school, and when they start living independently, which is why it’s an important therapeutic need. Rather than potentially escalating the situation because things have become too much, they’ll lean on strategies you teach them to help them stay in control of their thoughts, feelings, and actions.

When children and young people can’t find the words for their thoughts and feelings, they’ll communicate them through their behaviour instead, and in some cases, the action is automatic because it has become so ingrained.

Children who live in unsafe environments often have to adapt their behaviour to keep themselves safe; trauma can also physically alter their developing brain, which can leave them in a constant state of fight-or-flight. This can affect their response to everyday situations and people because they’re on high alert – everything can seem like a threat.

These children need help to feel safe in a world that hasn’t been kind to them, and you’ll support this therapeutic need with specialist parenting approaches, such as PACE parenting. Over time, you’ll learn what your child’s behaviour is telling you, and they’ll begin to discover that the world isn’t always as scary as it might first seem.

When children move into care, they have to leave everything that has made them who they are up to this point behind – their friends, family, home, community, and possessions – to begin a new chapter of their life in an unfamiliar environment.

This can have a profound impact on their sense of identity and belonging, which are so important that they are on the third tier of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and are essential for children to reach their full potential.

At the end of the day, everyone wants to understand who they are and where they fit into this strange and complicated world. As a foster parent, you’ll meet this therapeutic need by helping children in your care feel like part of the family, exploring their heritage, and nurturing intrinsic parts of their identity, such as their culture and religion.

We believe that a child’s traumatic past shouldn’t prevent them from having a bright future, which is why education and development are important therapeutic needs for children in care.

Education can break generational cycles of foster care and poverty by increasing social mobility and a child’s earning potential in adulthood. However, many children in care are behind their peers at school, and they need your help to get them back on track.

As a foster parent, you’ll support your child’s education by working with the school, therapists, advisory teachers, and social workers to make sure they feel safe at school and get the most out of their education. You’ll also create a positive learning environment at home, assist with homework, and ensure your child receives the right support.