Mockingbird grows as foster carers value ‘extended family’ support network
Nina Jacobs
Tuesday, February 1, 2022
A pioneering programme that nurtures relationships between children, young people and foster families to deliver sustainable foster care has seen continual growth in the UK.
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Model of practice sees “constellations” of foster carers established who offer support to each other
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Number of constellations and areas they are operating in have grown during the pandemic
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Analysis by the Fostering Network shows the model has prevented foster carers leaving and placements breaking down
ACTION
The Fostering Network, which has led on implementing the Mockingbird Family Model since 2015, says not even the huge challenges presented by the pandemic has slowed its expansion.
The charity’s latest update reveals 17 new fostering community networks, known as constellations, were set up from 2020 to 2021 despite the restrictions of repeated national lockdowns. This brings the total number of constellations to 85 across 62 Mockingbird projects – or partners – in the UK, explains Lily Stevens, who was appointed to manage the programme from the start.
Of these partners, three are independent foster care providers but the rest are local authorities, each delivering a version of Mockingbird that is faithful to the model but tailored to their own needs, she says.
“It has grown organically through word of mouth about the benefits that you see with Mockingbird,” she adds.
“Despite the pandemic we have continued to grow. In fact, it has proved just how vital this support is for foster carers and the children and young people they look after.”
Mockingbird, an evidence-based model, is delivered by the charity in the UK under licence from the Mockingbird Society USA which originated the programme from its Seattle base.
It aims to improve placement stability for fostered children as well as helping to recruit and retain more foster carers. This is achieved through peer support and activities, including planned and emergency sleepovers, provided by a “hub home” that is connected to a constellation of around six to 10 “satellite” foster homes.
The model has successfully replicated the support available through extended family networks, placing an experienced foster carer at the “hub home” to support the foster families in each constellation.
“The hub carer is like a grandparent of the constellation with the hub home being where everybody gathers on a Sunday for lunch,” explains Stevens.
“Children, foster carers, birth children, even the social workers come along. It’s a hive of activity and a place where everyone gets to know one another.
“It’s an extended family and apart from the fact everybody looks different you really feel as if when you walk into one of their constellation meetings or meet any of them that they know and love those children as a group.”
The hub home has to be able to provide two spare beds for emergency and planned sleepovers, a crucial element to the model, she adds.
However, Stevens is keen to stress that such sleepovers are not referred to as respite and that Mockingbird is not intended to be a respite service. She says: “Sometimes when people need a sleepover, they need it in a time of crisis such as a big argument happening on a Friday night. Actually, all that foster carer needs is somebody they can ring at 9pm who will say ‘how about that child or young person stays over at my house and I’ll call you in the morning’.”
Stevens says rather than a placement then being disrupted or perhaps even ending, situations such as these are “normalised” through Mockingbird.
It allows carers and young people to then “move on” in the knowledge a relationship has not broken down, she adds.
“That’s why it’s important to have an emergency bed available but also other beds where they can provide planned sleepovers that the children look forward to,” Stevens says.
“That way everybody gets a break and nobody sees it as a punishment.”
While the charity provides training for new hub carers and liaison workers – a social worker attached to the constellation – it says the responsibility lies with each new partner to set up their own constellation.
“It’s a partnership with them to explore how Mockingbird can fit into the system that already exists and over time look at things differently within their service to increase those improved outcomes they will start to see with the constellations they set up,” explains Stevens.
On average, it can take a partner site up to a year before they are ready to make their first constellation operational. This was the case for Wakefield Council which began its journey in 2020 and subsequently launched its first Mockingbird constellation in January 2021.
The authority was one of a small number to be successful in bidding for a grant from the Department for Education which has historically helped to fund the expansion of the programme.
Vicky Schofield, the council’s service director for children’s social care, says a second constellation has since been launched and a third, and most likely fourth, is planned for 2022.
The first constellation comprises 13 foster carers across seven satellite homes and one hub home and includes 14 children, of which two are adopted and one is in a “staying put” arrangement, she explains.
“It’s been pretty successful and although it has been complicated by the pandemic and restrictions around physical mixing, the constellation has been able to achieve demonstrable outcomes in terms of placement stability for young people living within it and significant progress in relation to the carers,” says Schofield.
This has been demonstrated by the council stepping down one young person from a residential placement at a children’s home.
“We are very clear that the circumstances of that young person would have been difficult to accommodate in a mainstream fostering family without significant additional help,” she explains.
“So the work that has been done around that young person in facilitating additional contact with the hub carer and the other satellite homes has helped provide him with a support network that he wouldn’t otherwise have had.”
Similarly, she says one of the foster families within the constellation might have moved away from the service had they not experienced the level of peer support and training that Mockingbird provides.
“We also know that we have shored up at least two of the placements within the constellation that could have become pretty unstable,” she adds.
Becoming a Mockingbird partner has been part of the council’s overall improvement plan after its children’s services department received an “inadequate” rating from Ofsted in 2018.
The inspectorate’s latest report, published in January, has since rated the service as “good”.
Schofield says addressing a fall in foster carerswas a priority when she took up post in 2018, and recent years have seen a reversal of this trend.
“We believe Mockingbird has helped us with that but it’s not the only measure we’ve done to address our carer cohort,” she says.
“We have tried to work with people on their individual circumstances and been really clear to offer them what we believe is the right level of support.”
IMPACT
As of November 2021, there were 62 Mockingbird partners with 85 constellations across the north, south and central regions of England.
The Fostering Network’s latest programme update highlights the average Mockingbird constellation includes eight satellite families, 16 adults and 16 children and young people.
Data from 74 active constellations in 31 partners, as of March 2021, shows there was an average of two constellations per partner.
These constellations were made up of 571 satellite families with 2,543 people involved in or benefiting from Mockingbird, including 462 siblings supported by the programme.
Further analysis by the charity shows 10 per cent of carers would have resigned if they had not been supported by Mockingbird.
More than 18 per cent of placements would also have broken down had it not been for the support of those involved in the programme, the charity says.
Feedback received from satellite families about how they coped during the national lockdowns reveals that online contact played a key role in keeping constellations connected.
“Our weekly Covid-19 testing helps us host sleepovers,” one hub home carer says. “As ever, we have connected through Zoom chats which have been welcomed and the WhatsApp group is still nicely active with all sharing both support and fun stuff.”
Another commented: “Despite me being clinically vulnerable, I have been able to keep up to date with all my carers and children on Facetime which has been delightful. The hub is going strong.”