I am Sharon Thompson Fosterline Co-Ordinator at Fostertalk. I am a qualified social worker with extensive experience in children’s services and fostering. I have worked as a supervising social worker, deputy and manager of fostering services. In addition to my role at Fostertalk I am also an Independent Panel Member for a local authority. Fosterline is delivered by Fostertalk on behalf of the Department for Education and is a free confidential advice line for anyone in England who is interested in finding out more about fostering or is a foster carer and would welcome impartial advice and information.
My role is to oversee the service attending to staffing issues and training needs and helping to develop the service. We are a small dedicated team with a wealth of experience in social care and fostering. Part of my role is to produce reports for the Department of Education with information on volume of calls, topics raised and try to help identify any barriers to fostering and any trends. No identifying carer details are ever shared as the service is totally confidential. I also respond to calls, emails or live-chat from foster carers alongside our Fosterline Advisors.
One of the privileges of the role is that I often talk to people at the beginning of their fostering journey providing information and answering their queries helping them to be able to make informed decisions on their next steps. Advisors also regularly speak with foster carers who are worried about an issue. Foster carers may feel they are not being listened to or are unhappy with their fostering service or perhaps find themselves subject to an allegation and feel anxious and distressed.
The service aims to provide information, possible options and emotional support to enable a carer to make informed decisions for themselves. Fosterline can be contacted on 0800 040 7675 or via our website where you can book a call back, send us an email or use livechat https://www.fosterline.info/about-us/contact-us.