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Foster Care Fortnight 2018

Foster Care Fortnight, Day 11: Placement Team

Sunbeam Fostering Agency has a dedicated Placement Team. The team has a proactive approach to fully understanding carers availability and strengths and work closely with Supervising Social Workers (SSW) and Local Authority Commissioning Teams in order to offer well matched placements. Sunbeam holds various tenders across the county, which in turn maximises our placement opportunities and ensures we remain the key choice for Local Authorities. To further develop this, the team holds regular meetings with Local Authorities to ensure our positive working relationship is maintained and developed further.

Meet your team:

Mahim Choudhury – Placement Team Manager

Sunbeam is a great place to be! I have been with Sunbeam for over 5 years and have enjoyed every second! I love what I do and have a great passion to make a difference. My main goal is to ensure our foster carers are supported and the team continue to offer well-matched placements. Sunbeam remains an OFSTED “Outstanding” agency, this is something we have always been proud of and we continue to ensure our high standards are maintained.

Nicola Elliott – Placement Officer
I started working with Sunbeam in January of this year and I received a very warm welcome. I have worked with young people for 17 years and I come from an Early Years background. I feel the placement team is the heart of the agency as we work with so many different people and I am very glad to be a part of the family!

Mohammed Khurram – Placement officer

I have been working with Sunbeam Fostering Agency since 2009. I have worked in various departments within Sunbeam and I recently joined Placement Team. I enjoy interacting with carers and making a positive contribution. Since 2000, our carers have provided care to more than 10000 children/young people. I am proud to be part of the Sunbeam team!

Roshin Varghese- Placement officer

I really enjoy working as a placement officer in Sunbeam. I have more than four years of experience in customer relationship management. My passion is playing cricket & travelling. I have always found it exciting to meet people from different cultural backgrounds. I can speak English, Hindi, Tamil and Malayalam.

Mathew Jacob – Placement Officer

I have recently joined the Sunbeam family. Every employee wants their work place to be challenging, friendly, rewarding and above all providing good environment. It is everyone’s dream to be part of an excellent team of professionals. Sunbeam gives me, an ample of opportunities to grow and develop professionally. Sunbeam inspires its employees to be innovative and promotes freedom with responsibility. I am a happy family member! I am a social worker and look forward to growing and offering my experience to the team.

How does it work?

The team receive referrals from a number of local authorities across the country. Should a referral come through that can be considered a match, the carer will be contacted by the team and the key points of the referral will be discussed over the phone. The placement officer will then send the carer a secure copy of the referral via email allowing carers to review and raise any questions or queries. At the same time, this will also be discussed with the SSW and Team Manager. Once all are in agreement to accept the referral the placement team propose the carers formally to the Local Authority. The final outcome/decision is then made by the young person’s Social Worker.

A little bit extra!

We support the carers via regular phone calls for those carers who do not yet have a placement or those who have additional vacancies, just to keep carers in the loop around referral trends. The team also send carers profiles every Monday to the relevant Local authorities to update them of availability. The current trends are sibling groups, enhanced needs referrals and newly arrived unaccompanied minors.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1E1TKeDX38w