Training for Foster Parents: What to Expect at ACS
At ACS, you don’t need previous experience to become a foster parent. Our ongoing, trauma-informed training programme equips you with the skills and confidence to support children who’ve had difficult starts in life—providing tailored guidance from your first enquiry and throughout your entire fostering journey.
Wondering what training will look like when you join ACS?
As a foster parent, you’ll care for vulnerable children and young people who might not have had the best start to life. Many will be living with the trauma of their early experiences, and the upheaval of moving into care can leave its mark on their well-being.
These children need foster families who truly understand their needs and know how to provide care tailored to each individual child. That’s where our foster parent training comes in.
At ACS, you don’t need any experience to become a foster parent because you’ll receive ongoing training from the start and throughout your fostering journey. But how does it work, and what can you expect to learn? Read on to find out.
Why ongoing training for foster parents matters
Although parenting and fostering might seem similar, children in care have usually had to deal with quite a lot in the first few years of their lives. In fact, figures published in 2025 reveal that 67% of children who enter care will have experienced some form of abuse or neglect, while others may have lost a parent, lived in homes where they witnessed domestic violence, or have a disability that their parents found difficult to manage.
As a result, these children need foster parents who are trauma-informed and know how to meet their specific needs, so they have the chance to heal from their trauma and make positive steps forward.
That’s why at ACS, we offer ongoing training for foster parents, which will help you:
- Feel confident and prepared to care for children with different needs.
- Build strong, healing bonds with children in your care.
- Create a home environment where children feel safe to be themselves.
- Meet the changing needs of children as they grow.
- Understand each child’s particular needs, such as emotional, physical, behavioural, educational, and cultural.
- Stay up to date with the latest trauma-informed approaches and practices.
- Recognise each child’s behaviour as a form of communication.
- Be the voice for a child until they can speak up for themselves.
- Grow in your role as a fostering professional.
ACS trauma-informed training for foster parents
When you join ACS, you become part of a fostering agency that takes a flexible approach to training, offering a combination of face-to-face, online, and e-learning courses. This way, you can fit training around any other commitments you may have and learn in a way that suits you.
As part of our support for foster parents, your supervising social worker will create a personal development plan to help you track your progress and identify any gaps in your knowledge, so you know which courses to take.
Your learning will begin during your assessment and continue throughout your time with us, and any skills you develop can be taken with you if you decide to move on from fostering.
Let’s take a look at our training for foster parents in more detail.
Prepare to Foster
While your fostering assessment is underway, you’ll attend our pre-approval training course, ‘Prepare to Foster’, at your local ACS office. Over two to three days, you’ll learn the ins and outs of fostering, so you know whether it’s the right route for you and your family to take.
From trauma and childhood development to attachment and supporting good behaviour, you’ll be introduced to key topics that will underpin the care you provide to children and young people once you’re approved.
Experienced foster parents will also be invited to attend, giving you the chance to ask questions and hear from those who already have children in their care. You may even make some friends who could become a vital part of your fostering support network.
Mandatory Training
Once approved, you’ll begin our mandatory training courses that are mostly available online. Some you’ll only need to complete once, whereas others will need to be refreshed every couple of years.
These training modules will also help you complete the Training Support and Development Standards (TSDS) workbook, which every foster parent is required to finish within their first year of fostering.
Here is just a selection of the mandatory training courses we offer:
- Protecting Rights in a Caring Environment (PRICE)
- Safeguarding Children
- Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
- Health and Safety
- Emergency First Aid
- Safer Caring and Allegations
- Record and Reporting
- Medication and Health Care
Advanced training
Once you’ve completed our mandatory training, you can then begin exploring our advanced training courses, which will help you meet your foster child’s specific needs.
They’ll also help you stay ahead of current and rising issues that children in your care might face, while enhancing your personal development and broadening your knowledge and skills.
Many of our courses are delivered by our training team, while other training sessions are run by guest speakers who specialise in fostering, safeguarding, and child development.
Here’s a sneak peek at our specialist training courses:
- Understanding Masculinity and Tackling Misogyny
- Understanding Neurodiversity, Autism, ADHD, FASD, Dyslexia and Dyspraxia.
- Listening Between the Lines
- Adultification and Parentification
- Bullying
- FGM, Forced Marriage, and Honour-Based Abuse
- Gaming and Gambling Awareness
- Online Safety
Religion and culture training
At ACS, we’re proud to specialise in faith-based and cultural fostering, which means we work hard to match children with foster families who share the same religion or culture.
However, this isn’t always possible, which is why we provide training to help you nurture a child’s faith and meet their culturally specific needs, so you feel confident fostering children and young people from all walks of life.
From teaching you how to care for their hair and skin to preparing food and helping them navigate prejudice, our training will make sure you know how to meet each child’s needs even when you don’t share their religion or culture.
Learn more about fostering with ACS
At ACS, our training will help you become a foster parent who knows how to meet a child’s needs, create a positive home environment, and build a relationship with them that truly transforms their life.
If you’re thinking about fostering and want to learn more about ACS, call us on 0800 9177 837, or submit your details via our online form. Our incredible team, who speak several languages, will take you through the initial requirements, answer your questions, and help you get started on your fostering journey.
