IFCO Member’s Groups
The theme for the first IFCO member’s discussion groups in 2021 is the importance of pets and animals for children, families, and attachment.
We all know animals are also family members. There’s research that says animals in the foster home may therefore play an important part in helping children to find and develop secure, warm, and loving relationships. If you want to celebrate your pets, animals, and rescues, here’s a 2021 calendar of Celebrate Your Pets and Rescue Animals!
In our discussion groups we will review some of the research that is around and hear from one of our members on the results from a recent survey they undertook filled in by 54 people, young people, workers/ family members/ carers, organisations, and politicians that’s allowed them to better understand the dynamics and people’s experiences of having a pet in the care system and social housing.
Here are the days, times, and dates for the Youth, Social Worker & Professionals, and Foster & Kinship Carer Discussion Groups!
Youth Discussion Group
Time, Day and Date: Tuesday, 9th of February at 5.30pm (GMT London, UK)
Location: Zoom (online)
Registration and more information is emailed directly to all Youth members before each event!
Social Worker and Professionals Discussion Group
Time, Day and Date: Thursday, 11th of February at 5.30pm (GMT London, UK)
Location: Zoom (online)
Registration and more information is sent out in every newsletter to members!
Foster and Kinship Carers Discussion Group
Time, Day, and Date: Thursday, 11th of March at 9am (GMT London, UK)
Location: Zoom (online)
Registration and more information is sent out in every newsletter to members
Online Webinars
LIST AND DATES OF WEBINARS OPEN TO MEMBERS AND PUBLIC
Click on each tab for more details and how to register. This includes topics, presenters, biographies, dates and times.
All the webinars in these tabs are open to IFCO members and the public.
July 2nd - Life Story Work during Covid-19
|
On Thursday, July 2nd at 2pm (London, UK time), IFCO will be hosting an online webinar with an expert panel discussing “Life Story Work in the time of Covid-19”. The three panel speakers are:
[Registration has now closed. Thank you to the presenters and the participants for their time and participation. We will soon be uploading the recording of the session.] Biographies of speakers: Bep van Sloten Catherine Paynter |
August 13th - Out of Home Care Standards
On Thursday, August 13th at 1pm (London, UK time), IFCO hosted an online webinar with an expert panel discussing “Developing and Reviewing Out-of-Home-Care Standards”.
The four panel speakers are:
- (IFCO Host) Jo Derrick, Chief Executive Officer for a National Throughcare and Aftercare charity and Vice-President of IFCO (Scotland, UK);
- Bethanne Logan, Non-Executive Director at Children’s Hearings Scotland (Scotland, UK)
- Matthew Vella, CEO at Social Care Standards Authority (Malta)
- John Role, Social Worker and IFCO Board member (Malta)
This free webinar was open to the public.
Resources relating to Out of Home Care Standards created or discussed during the webinar:
Youtube video of the webinar
John Role’s Powerpoint introducing Quality4Children European Standards for Out of Home Care
Scotland: Care Review Promise Reports (click here for website and reports):
–The Promise: This is the main report which details out the asks of Scotland in how to create a care haven for our children and young people) and a Pinky Promise for younger readers.
–The Plan sets out how this can be achieved.
–The Money and Follow the Money sets out the human and economic cost of care and where we could save by investing upstream.
–The Rules details the current legislative framework and how this needs to change.
– And the Thank You which is a thank you to each and every one of the 5500+ people who shared their stories with the review.
Malta: Social Care Standards Authority
General Website: https://scsa.gov.mt/en/Pages/Welcome-SCSA.aspx
Regulations and standards, including easy-to-read versions for children: https://scsa.gov.mt/en/Pages/Publications.aspx
Biographies of speakers:
Jo Derrick
Jo has extensive experience in the fostering and children’s services sector, including 10 years as a foster carer. In her leadership roles in fostering, Jo has embedded the organisational culture that has empowered adults to feel confident tackling this complex but valuable therapeutic work, supporting children to integrate their histories in a way that makes sense to them.
Bethanne Logan Beth-Anne is currently a Non-Executive Director at Children’s Hearings Scotland and is the youngest person to ever be appointed to a non-departmental public body. Beth-Anne has worked largely in the participation field receiving a National Youth Work award for her contribution to ensuring better outcomes for Care-Experienced People. Being Care-Experienced herself, Beth-Anne was appointed to co-chair the “Best Place in the World” workgroup of the Independent Care Review in Scotland, which played an integral part in the findings of the Promise which was a product of all 10 workgroups of the Independent Care Review.
Matthew Vella
Matthew Vella was born on the 23rd May 1989 and as from a young age was always inclined towards policymaking and leadership. In fact, he formed part of his school’s council and later went on to head the National Youth Council in Malta. In his University days, he also spearheaded the founding of a student organisation targeting students from his own department reading for social work and social policy areas and within the same years also occupied the role of student representative on the Faculty Board.
Such formative experiences led the way for his professional role particularly as social worker working with children living away from their family and within alternative settings.
Whilst moving on to professional and headship roles in project management, policy development, strategy, initiatives and corporate services, as from 2018, he has been occupying the role of Chief Executive Officer of the Social Care Standards Authority, the national regulator for social welfare services. Under his leadership, this regulatory entity has launched a new model of Social Regulatory Standards for social welfare, whilst also achieving positive results in the inspection and licensing realms in such service provision. He is currently the Head of Delegation for Malta for the Steering Committee on the Rights of the Child as well as Bureau member, Rapporteur for the Children in the Digital Environment and Chairperson of the Working Group for Violence
against children within the fora of the Council of Europe.
September 2020 and into 2021!
IFCO will be launching the webinar series for September in July! We are very excited to be working with partners to deliver some diverse and quality webinars and discussions for 2020 and 2021.
Watch this space!
IFCO Webinars 2020
Online Webinars
LIST AND DATES OF WEBINARS OPEN TO MEMBERS AND PUBLIC
Click on each tab for more details and how to register. This includes topics, presenters, biographies, dates and times.
All the webinars in these tabs are open to IFCO members and the public.
July 2nd - Life Story Work during Covid-19
|
On Thursday, July 2nd at 2pm (London, UK time), IFCO will be hosting an online webinar with an expert panel discussing “Life Story Work in the time of Covid-19”. The three panel speakers are:
[Registration has now closed. Thank you to the presenters and the participants for their time and participation. We will soon be uploading the recording of the session.] Biographies of speakers: Bep van Sloten Catherine Paynter |
August 13th - Out of Home Care Standards
On Thursday, August 13th at 1pm (London, UK time), IFCO hosted an online webinar with an expert panel discussing “Developing and Reviewing Out-of-Home-Care Standards”.
The four panel speakers are:
- (IFCO Host) Jo Derrick, Chief Executive Officer for a National Throughcare and Aftercare charity and Vice-President of IFCO (Scotland, UK);
- Bethanne Logan, Non-Executive Director at Children’s Hearings Scotland (Scotland, UK)
- Matthew Vella, CEO at Social Care Standards Authority (Malta)
- John Role, Social Worker and IFCO Board member (Malta)
This free webinar was open to the public.
Resources relating to Out of Home Care Standards created or discussed during the webinar:
Youtube video of the webinar
John Role’s Powerpoint introducing Quality4Children European Standards for Out of Home Care
Scotland: Care Review Promise Reports (click here for website and reports):
–The Promise: This is the main report which details out the asks of Scotland in how to create a care haven for our children and young people) and a Pinky Promise for younger readers.
–The Plan sets out how this can be achieved.
–The Money and Follow the Money sets out the human and economic cost of care and where we could save by investing upstream.
–The Rules details the current legislative framework and how this needs to change.
– And the Thank You which is a thank you to each and every one of the 5500+ people who shared their stories with the review.
Malta: Social Care Standards Authority
General Website: https://scsa.gov.mt/en/Pages/Welcome-SCSA.aspx
Regulations and standards, including easy-to-read versions for children: https://scsa.gov.mt/en/Pages/Publications.aspx
Biographies of speakers:
Jo Derrick
Jo has extensive experience in the fostering and children’s services sector, including 10 years as a foster carer. In her leadership roles in fostering, Jo has embedded the organisational culture that has empowered adults to feel confident tackling this complex but valuable therapeutic work, supporting children to integrate their histories in a way that makes sense to them.
Bethanne Logan Beth-Anne is currently a Non-Executive Director at Children’s Hearings Scotland and is the youngest person to ever be appointed to a non-departmental public body. Beth-Anne has worked largely in the participation field receiving a National Youth Work award for her contribution to ensuring better outcomes for Care-Experienced People. Being Care-Experienced herself, Beth-Anne was appointed to co-chair the “Best Place in the World” workgroup of the Independent Care Review in Scotland, which played an integral part in the findings of the Promise which was a product of all 10 workgroups of the Independent Care Review.
Matthew VellaMatthew Vella was born on the 23rd May 1989 and as from a young age was always inclined towards policymaking and leadership. In fact, he formed part of his school’s council and later went on to head the National Youth Council in Malta. In his University days, he also spearheaded the founding of a student organisation targeting students from his own department reading for social work and social policy areas and within the same years also occupied the role of student representative on the Faculty Board.
Such formative experiences led the way for his professional role particularly as social worker working with children living away from their family and within alternative settings.
Whilst moving on to professional and headship roles in project management, policy development, strategy, initiatives and corporate services, as from 2018, he has been occupying the role of Chief Executive Officer of the Social Care Standards Authority, the national regulator for social welfare services. Under his leadership, this regulatory entity has launched a new model of Social Regulatory Standards for social welfare, whilst also achieving positive results in the inspection and licensing realms in such service provision. He is currently the Head of Delegation for Malta for the Steering Committee on the Rights of the Child as well as Bureau member, Rapporteur for the Children in the Digital Environment and Chairperson of the Working Group for Violence
against children within the fora of the Council of Europe.
September 2020 and into 2021!
IFCO will be launching the webinar series for September in July! We are very excited to be working with partners to deliver some diverse and quality webinars and discussions for 2020 and 2021.
Watch this space!
IFCO Members Content
Member Discussion Groups
MEMBER DISCUSSION GROUPS
Click on each tab for more details. This includes topics, facilitator details, dates, and times.
Registration information will be sent to your (or your organisation’s) email address linked to your IFCO membership.
IFCO is committed to providing support and opportunities to our members to meet, network, and exchange. Learning from our 40 years of conferences and activity, and using technology platforms, we have created discussion groups for various member groups to meet every 6-8 weeks (except for a break in August) in 2020. We will continue this into the future too! We welcome your feedback and hope you will participate.
Click on each tab for more information including dates, times, how to register, and more.
To become a member and be able to register to join these groups, click this link.
Youth Groups
The Youth group meetings are closed meetings with young people who are already members. It is hosted by Billie-Jo (IFCO Board member, youth member, and care leaver), April (IFCO board member and care leaver), Carrie (IFCO board member, care leaver and works for a care leaver organisation) and Jo (IFCO Vice-President and works for a care leaver organisation). The purpose is to create a space to ask youth what they want from IFCO membership and co-create that space and activities together. We know the IFCO Youth conferences are something that young people enjoy and benefit from but we want to build on that with them.
First meeting!
Tuesday: July 7th, 4.30pm (London, UK time) via Zoom. All current registered IFCO Youth members were emailed directly with an invitation to join this online discussion. It would be a get to know you session as well as discussion what IFCO is planning as well as what the youth members might like to plan. The young people can then decide what the purpose of future events or meetings would be.
Further dates:
Tuesday, September 7th
Tuesday, November 3rd
Tuesday, December 15th
Please note, we will not be offering online open registration for these meetings. Invitation and registration links will be sent directly to youth member registered email addresses.
Foster and Kinship Carers
The focus of these groups will be to provide an international perspective on foster care and essentially a peer network with speakers invited on particular topics. Again this in the early stages of development so the participants can influence the direction to their benefit. Jo (IFCO Vice-President, former foster carer, CEO for a care leaver organisation), John (IFCO board member and social worker), and Stacy (IFCO board member, foster carer, and academic) will lead on these groups initially.
First meeting!
Friday, July 31st, 9am (London, UK time).
Further dates:
Friday, October 2nd (9am London, UK time).
Friday, December 4th (9am London, UK time)
Please note, we will not be offering online open registration for these meetings. Invitation and registration links will be sent directly to organisation and individual adult member registered email addresses.
Social Workers and Professionals
This discussion group is aimed at front line workers in the child protection and foster care area who would like to talk and share with others from across the globe. Stacy (IFCO Board member, foster parent, and academic) and John (IFCO Board member and social worker) will be chairing these on behalf of IFCO.
Each meeting will have a themed focus which will be shared in advance.
First meeting!
Friday, September 18th, 9 am (London, UK time). The registration link has been sent out via the IFCO Member’s Newsletter.
Further dates:
Friday, October 16th (To be confirmed)
Friday, November 13th
Please note, we will not be offering online open registration for these meetings. Invitation and registration links will be sent directly to organisation and individual adult member registered email addresses.