New Beginnings

New Beginnings: Understanding Fostering

A guide for children in care - and those who support them

New Beginnings: Understanding Fostering is a compassionate and empowering guide created especially for children entering or currently experiencing foster care. It offers clear, sensitive explanations to help young readers understand the changes in their lives, while also serving as a valuable resource for foster carers seeking to better support the children in their care.

With warmth and honesty, the book explores the wide range of emotions children may feel-confusion, fear, sadness, hope, and even excitement-and provides reassurance that these feelings are natural and valid.

Children will find guidance on:

• Why foster care happens and what it means for them
• What to expect when joining a foster family and settling into a new home
• The positives of fostering, such as feeling cared for and forming new connections
• The emotional challenges, including missing their birth family and coping with uncertainty
• Strategies for feeling safe, heard, and understood

For foster carers, New Beginnings offers a window into the child's experience-helping them respond with empathy, patience, and insight. It fosters a shared understanding, encouraging stronger bonds and a sense of security.

Above all, this book empowers children to see themselves as the storytellers of their own journey. It promotes resilience, belonging, and hope-supporting both children and carers through the fostering experience with clarity and compassion.