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This is the Business Village People podcast. Hello, I'm David Markwell and welcome to the Barnsley Business Village People Podcast. This is episode nine of series two. In this podcast, we showcase stories from the companies, service providers and staff at the Business Village in Barnsley, South Yorkshire. In this episode of Business Village People.

The Business Village has a strong working relationship with enterprising Barnsley. They provide business support to companies looking to expand, develop, and flourish, as well as guidance and help for new businesses. Paul Johnson is a key account manager. We'll be finding out from him. How enterprising Barnsley can help companies win.

But first, I'd like to introduce you to Capstone Foster Care, an independent fostering agency that supports hundreds of carers across England. One of their officers is based here at the Business Village. I've been along to have a chat with them. My name's Allison Dixon, and um, I'm a senior practitioner, uh, social worker, and I work for Capstone North.

It's a fostering agency. We're an, um, independent foster agency who are employee, employee owned. So a lot of our, um, business and our money goes back into, um, supporting foster carers and families. Lots of events for children and families. So we'll have like a celebration day. We'll celebrate Eid. For example, we have Christmas events.

We take the children to like Gulliver's or rather valley, the water park we've done in previous years. So it's basically we're, we're a small ho in Barnsley. It's a bigger organisation, Capstone North. But, um, we've got that kind of family feel. So how did Capstone begin? Began in 2009 as an independent foster agency, and then obviously it's evolved over the years and it's quite a big organization.

Well, it's become bigger, but like I say, we've got individual hubs. And we are based here in Barnsley Business Centre, but we've also got Hobson, Bradford and Hull in Manchester and also in the south of England. How, how do you fit into the picture? So basically we work with a wide variety of local authorities from all over the borough and, um, it can be as far as far away as, as say, Bristol down south.

And sometimes children move around for whatever reason. Um, so, so we work with all the local authorities and we receive referrals for children that need to be looked after and cared for. 'cause they're in, they're very vulnerable and they've been assessed by the courts to come into care. And I don't know if you're aware, but there's a national shortage of foster carers.

So, and, and I think as well since COVID and the Pandemic, a lot of the spare rooms that people had. That they need for fostering. 'cause they need to have their own bedroom. Um, they've been used for offices, so then that's created, um, a bit of a problem. And so nationally it's very difficult, um, for children to be placed in area.

So the area, so we, we try to kinda. Manage that and recruit foster carers, which every, every fostering agency and local authority is trying to do. What do you look for in a foster carer? Someone that's empathic, that's obviously got got, they need a spare room and a bedroom for a start. They have lots of training.

Um, we like them to be holistic and [00:04:00 ] therapeutic in the approach. And their approach to parenting. We look for skills. It, it could be that they've maybe been, um, teachers or support workers or possibly worked in the care sector themselves. Um, a lot of our foster carers are like kinda middle aged, or they could be in their fifties.

We also have some younger ones. And, and there's, it's a wide variety. Sometime we have short break foster carers, so they might just provide care for children on a weekend basis or for a week or just like on a short term basis. And then other short term carers could be, could be up to two years.

And if the child settles, then it goes to long term. So the skills we need is, is basically to accept these children as part of your family. That's what we're looking for. They get fully assessed. It's called a Form F assessment, and it basically goes through that person's whole life and any previous relationships or so we, so we look for any kinda strengths, vulnerabilities, uh, that doesn't kinda count them out.

It just depends. Um, obviously if they've got a criminal record for violence or something, then we wouldn't consider it. It just depends on the person. So it is like a really thorough assessment because we want to get the right people there. There are so many different kinds of fostering that you are looking for.

Yeah, and we also do parent and child as well. And that could be both parents and a child or children or one parent and that's, that's a different, but they need additional training to become a parent and child foster care. So, so it's quite, it's quite wide and varied really. The foster enroll and, and every year the foster carers get like an annual review.

They're assessed on a yearly basis. And, um, there's basically the team around the child. So it's not like any other [00:06:00 ] employment, if you like, that the class is self-employed. Um, and they get lots of support. Like I say, lots of training. We have fostering support, uh, meetings. They have monthly supervision with the supervising social worker.

So foster carers have their own. So social worker. I've been looking at your website and there's some lovely stories on there, and one story that stood out to me, which again, is something that. I'd never thought of. Uh, it is a service that you provide to unaccompanied asylum seekers and there's a story on there, em, EM'S story.

How do you provide the support for asylum seekers, unaccompanied asylum seekers who might not even speak English? Well, that can be a challenge in itself, and obviously we work closely with. Local authorities and, uh, interpreters if it's needed. Um, it might be that some foster carers speak more than one language, so they, they might [00:07:00 ] have, they might have the same language as the asylum seeker, so that's helpful.

But if not, we use interpreters and we work with local authority. We look at community and how we can integrate them into. Um, society with, you know, with all the trauma and everything that, that, that brings with being asylum seeker. So how did you get into working in fostering? I started off working with teenagers for 10 years, which was interesting.

I really enjoyed it actually. Doing what? Uh, working with young people that were leaving care, uh, 16 plus. So basically the age, the age group was from 16 to 21. And I worked in for, for children for, for 10 years. And then I decided to have a change of direction and looked at, um, fostering. And I've been in fostering social work since 2011 till present date basically.

And I really enjoy it. Did you ever think you'd become a social worker? No, not initially. Uh, what did [00:08:00 ] you want to be when you left school? I didn't really think about it actually 'cause it was, obviously I'm a woman of a certain generation. I kinda left school and um, went with some friends to work in the Channel Islands for a summer and ended up staying for about 15 years.

Um, and I worked initially in hotels 'cause there was lots of, um, restaurants and hotels and in Guernsey. And then I got into care with the elderly and did that for a while and then that sort of led me. Then I moved to England in 1992 and then I sort of was led down a different path and thinking. The quality of care for the elderly in comparison to the Channel Islands was very different, and so I, I decided to, to look in another direction and then decided to be a mature student and, and do some qualifications and got my degree and then it led me to social work.

What did you really want to be there when you left school? I knew I wanted to travel. So how did you end up in, in Guernsey [00:09:00 ] jersey? Well, I, I was working in a factory. I left school, I think it was three weeks before my 16th birthday. But they paid me off the books 'cause they did back then and, and then they put me on, on the books obviously as soon as I, uh, my 16th birthday.

And then there was, there was some, some friends, uh, that worked beside and they were saying, oh, we're up. We're, um, we won't belong now. We'll be off to Sey Summer's starting. And I, I was like, oh, what are you doing? And just ask some questions. Oh, we're gonna be working in the hotels. And started asking some more questions.

I'm like, oh, I could do that. And they were going, you're too young. And I'm like, I'm old enough to work. Yeah. And it was literally one of those kinda spur of the moment I'm off. And I just went with them and, um, and I've not really looked back and, and I'm glad and I sort of left Scotland and it was much, much warmer in ey.

Hang on a minute. You're from Scotland? I never spotted that. Which, which, which part of Scotland You're from? All of it. Um, Stirlingshire, a little town called Deni, [00:10:00 ] which is seven mile from Sterling. So, and my accents kind of diluted, obviously, 'cause I've been, I've been diluted, I've been away longer than