What is included in Nexus 360?
Due to the nature of this placement, we have tailored a package to fully support you as a foster carer with us. You'll be entitled to...
Therapeutic fostering is a specialised type of fostering for children and young people who endured trauma before being placed in care. Read more to see what we offer.
At Nexus Fostering we strive to support our foster carers to respond to the individual needs of the children and young people who they care for. Children and young people will push boundaries and we think it is important to see beyond presenting behaviours, and place in context their life to date. It is vital that foster carers engage with the support for themselves and the children and young people. We have two supported fostering services, Care+ and Nexus 360, that offer additional support to foster carers and children and young people.
Nexus 360 is a therapeutic fostering service and our most comprehensive placement type. At Nexus Fostering, we believe all children and young people deserve a chance to live in a family setting. To provide this opportunity, we have developed and enhanced a specialised service named ‘Nexus 360’, often called ‘step-down’. A step down is for children and young people moving on from residential care or can be an alternative to them moving into residential care. In addition, we offer increased input and support for our foster carers.
It is fostering service overseen by a qualified psychologist, offering a highly intensive support package for foster carers to enable us to provide an outstanding service that gives challenging young people an alternative to residential care.
The children and young people who benefit from this service may have attachment difficulties, complex emotional needs, show complex behaviours, struggle to trust adults and had multiple placements. The children and young people often:
• Have experienced significant trauma
• Experience mental health difficulties
• Have complex behavioural needs some including risky behaviours
• Struggle in education and could be behind academically or not in full time education
• Have a developmental profile that is different to their chronological age
• Are vulnerable to child sexual exploitation or criminal exploitation
• May have a history of offending
• Have extremely low self-esteem
The service focuses on keeping children and young people safe and trying to stabilise them in a caring environment.
Due to the nature of this placement, we have tailored a package to fully support you as a foster carer with us. You'll be entitled to...
21-day respite for carers
Increased allowance
Daily contact from Nexus Fostering
Full training 24/7 support
Therapeutic support from a qualified clinician
Therapeutic care plan
Weekly visit from the support worker
Access to Education Liaison Officer.
The Care+ service provides foster placements with a therapeutic support package structured to meet the specific needs of each individual child and young person. Foster carers learn how to be effective and resilient in their work with challenging behaviour and emotional trauma. Providing consistency, safety and security so the child or young person can settle, grow and thrive.
The aim is to build a healthy relationship between the child and carers, which enables the child to develop an ability to.
Regulate emotions
Cope with stress
Believe themselves to be worthy of love, care and protection
The children and young people who benefit from this service often:
• Have experienced trauma
• Have attachment difficulties
• Complex emotional needs
• Present with complex behaviours
• Struggle to trust adults
• Have extremely low self-esteem
• Have had multiple placements
Due to the nature of this placement, we have tailored a package to fully support you as a foster carer with us. You'll be entitled to...
14-day respite for carers
Increased allowance
Full training and 24/7 support
Therapeutic support for foster carers from a qualified clinician
Therapeutic care plan
Access to Education Liaison Officer.
Graham and Damian have been fostering with Nexus Fostering for five years and are advocates of therapeutic fostering. Graham says "we have embraced the therapeutic parenting models and theories, and the outcome has been successful. There are no easy fixes. Not everything works, but be persistent, consistent, and trust the process.”
Read more here
More than 12,000 children in care are living without at least one of their siblings. Going into foster care can be traumatic for a child, and being separated from their siblings can worsen this. That is why Nexus Fostering will always try and find foster homes for siblings where they can stay together, as long as this is in each of their best interests.
Parent and Child fostering is about keeping young families together, where a parent and child stay with you when they need extra support. In most cases, the child is very young.
Permanence is long-term planning for a child or young person’s upbringing. The aim is to offer children a secure, stable, and loving home to last through childhood and beyond, providing a sense of security, continuity, commitment, identity, and belonging.
