meet Ilaria
When you foster with your local authority, you will have a team to support and encourage you, every step of the way. You will be allocated an experienced Supervising Social Worker who will be dedicated to supervising, developing and supporting you and your family throughout your fostering journey.
Ilaria is a Supervising Social Worker with Foster Wales Anglesey. A fluent Welsh speaker, she has worked in local authority fostering for many years and has experienced a wide range of families and situations.
Ilaria talks about her role and how building relationships with everyone involved in a foster child’s life is a key part of being a Supervising Social Worker.
how did you get into social work?
“After leaving school at 18, I went to work as a Nanny in Italy for 4 years. My Dad is Italian, and I wanted to be near my family. A few years after I came back to Wales, I got a job as a Supporting Social Worker with my local authority’s Children’s Team before going on to qualify as a Social Worker in 1999.
After 25 years of working in various Social Worker roles, I have now found a job where I can put what I have learned and the skills I have gained into practice.”
how would you describe your role as a supervising social worker in fostering?
“My role involves many different responsibilities, but I mainly wear two hats – a supporting hat and a supervising hat.
I provide support to new and existing foster families to ensure that they have access to adequate information, training, advice and guidance to enable them to meet the needs of the child or young person in their care. It is also about helping them with the emotional and practical support that they may need.
Supervision, which normally takes place every 1 – 3 moths, is a time to reflect and ensure that the foster carers work within the established legislations, regulations and standards related to fostering.
Every foster child will have a care plan, which provides important information relating to the child and sets out what should happen whilst the child is living in a foster home, and what should happen at the end of their stay. I work closely with the foster carers in ensuring that the care plan is followed but also allowing the foster carers to challenge or suggest changes to the plan if they feel that the plan is not working in the best interest of the child.
I like to describe my role as ‘always dancing’ – dancing with the children’s team and dancing with the foster carers to ensure the best possible outcomes for our foster children.
I currently support around 14 foster families.”
what skills and characteristics do you need to be a supervising social worker?
“Being a Supervising Social Worker is about building relationships with everyone in the fostering household and everyone involved in the child or young person’s life. The trust that comes from these relationships is key to everything that we do so you need to be dependable.
You need good listening skills. Empathy is important in this role so that the foster carers feel able to open-up and be vulnerable with you. We deal with a lot of emotions, so you do need a degree of resilience. It may hurt like mad inside, but you have to be strong for the foster carers.
It’s also about managing expectations and encouraging your foster carers to manage their expectations too. Being able to help others to be reflective is also an important skill in this role.
You also need to be able to think outside the box and be willing to consider new ideas.”
what is a typical day in the life of a supervising social worker?
“One day, I could be in back-to-back Looked-After Reviews, which are regular meetings that bring together people who are closely involved with the care of the foster child.
Other days, I will be catching up on admin work and telephone calls in the office, and generally touching base with everyone involved with the foster families that I currently support.
This is certainly not an office job – there is a really good balance between seeing and supporting my foster carers and having some time to catch up on admin work.”
how often do you see your foster families?
“I will see my foster families around once a month, but it does depend on the level of support and contact that they need. Sometimes, I will check in more often and I am always at the other end of the phone if they need me.
We have a great team of support workers who are also there to support our foster families.
My foster carers’ wellbeing is my biggest priority. When I see them, my first question is always asking how they are feeling. If my foster carers are happy, the foster children are normally happy too.
We are all close by, living in the same community. We know our foster families well.
I believe that foster carers should be viewed as professionals, and I always try to treat them as professionals as we are part of the same team.
That’s what local authority fostering is all about.”
how are your foster carers supported out of hours?
“As I get to know and build relationships with my foster families, I can often pre-empt what might happen over the weekend or in the middle of the night. I can then put a plan in place for them and ensure that they know exactly who to contact during those times so that they aren’t in a situation where they feel that they are alone with no one to help them.”
what do you love most about your job?
“One of the most rewarding aspects of this job for me is when some of the children and their families come to me years later, still remembering me, and tell me how much of a difference we have made to their lives – there is no other feeling like it.
I have built so many lifelong relationships in this role and I am passionate about that.
Working with and supporting separated children and their foster carers is also very rewarding. Seeing them thrive out of their countries and build new relationships within their local community is lovely.”
what are the biggest challenges of your role?
“The biggest challenge is finding suitable families for our children and young people, and it is often quite limited.
It’s a lovely feeling when we have a choice of foster carers to put forward to the children’s team, but that’s not always the case unfortunately, especially with more complex cases. That’s why we constantly need to recruit more foster carers so that we have a diverse range of carers to ensure that our children and young people have a better chance of staying local and that we can get the matching right.”
how do you deal with the challenges of your role?
“I find that mindfulness has helped me to deal with particularly challenging situations and also enables me to help my foster carers when they go through tough times.”
how do you relax and unwind when you are not at work?
“I love cooking – mainly Italian food which is part of my heritage. I started making sourdough during lockdown and I have carried on ever since!
When I did my mindfulness training, I gave myself a challenge of learning to surf. I’m by no means brilliant but being by the sea is really important to me. One motto I learnt was “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf” (Jon Kabat-Zinn) and I feel it reflects that life brings challenges but being willing to adapt your skills will get you through.
Going to Italy is also special to me, and spending time with my family.”
what would your advice be to anyone considering fostering?
“There is no typical foster family and we welcome foster carers from all walks of life.
Have that initial chat with your local authority fostering team. Find out how we could make fostering work for you and your family, and what training and support you would need.
If you only make a difference to one child or young person, then that’s more than enough.”
could you foster with your local authority?
If you live in Anglesey, contact Foster Wales Anglesey and a member of our dedicated team will be in touch for a friendly, no obligation conversation to help you decide if fostering is right for you.
If you live anywhere else in Wales, visit Foster Wales for more information and to find your local authority fostering team.
