Program Overview
The CALM program introduces a holistic model of support for foster carers, focusing on four key pillars: Care, Advocacy, Leadership, and Mentoring. Each pillar is designed to address the multifaceted needs of foster children and the carers who support them, fostering an environment of continuous development and improvement.
The program comprises five modules, each with a specific focus. The Orientation module lays the ethical groundwork, while the Care module aims to improve practical caregiving skills. The Advocacy module empowers carers to stand up for foster children's rights, and the Leadership module develops skills for positive influence within the fostering community. Finally, the Mentoring module encourages the sharing of knowledge and mutual support among carers with the support of the agency. Each module contains units that delve into specific topics, such as ethical principles, inclusivity, behaviour management, emotional intelligence, navigating the social care system, effective communication, cultural competency, leadership in practice, teamwork, and knowledge of the agency’s resources and support. The program design ensures a comprehensive approach, equipping foster carers with the necessary skills and knowledge to provide high-quality care and to support both the children in their care and their fellow carers.
Training is delivered through a series of assigned readings with five one-hour mock case evaluation sessions (one per module) between foster carers and their designated supervising social workers, where key discussions enable thorough exploration of the educational content, establish deep individualised understanding of the foster carer role, and feedback is collected with any recommendations integrated into the foster carer’s training plan.
Completion culminates in a comprehensive Indigo CALM Foster Carer Certification. This certification not only signifies foster carer’s demonstrated calibre of providing care to children under Indigo Fostering standards in tandem with regulatory requirements, but also their commitment to upholding the highest standards of care, advocacy, leadership, and mentoring in the fostering community. The CALM program, with its robust suite of modules and ethical grounding aims to proactively enhance the awareness and therefore quality of care provided to foster children and support the continuous development of foster carers.
Training Structure
The program begins with an Overview Module on the Code of Ethics for Foster Carers, setting a foundational understanding of the ethical considerations intrinsic to foster care. This module underscores the importance of integrity, respect, inclusivity, equality, and diversity, guiding participants towards ethical decision-making and application in daily care practices.
Subsequent sections delve into specialised modules:
1. Care emphasises responsive nurturing, behaviour management, and emotional support, incorporating principles of trauma-informed care and well-being.
2. Advocacy empowers carers to navigate the agency and social care system effectively, championing the rights and educational needs of foster children while fostering cultural competency and community engagement.
3. Leadership cultivates skills for leading by example, influencing positive change in foster care, and fostering an organisational culture that supports continuous improvement.
4. Mentoring prepares carers to gain and provide support through knowledge sharing, professional development, and resilience building, enhancing the collective competency of the fostering community.
Alignment with Indigo Policies, Regulations & Standards
Integrating the alignments with the Indigo Proactive Care Framework (PCF) into the CALM program overview ensures that the program not only adheres to the highest standards of care but also aligns with the specific compliance and quality assurance measures required by the framework. CALM’s modular competencies accumulation blueprint comprehensively integrates capabilities underscored across the Indigo PCF policies to nurture ethically grounded, operationally excellent foster carers driving both care and community centric change.
PCF Section 1 – Values, Principles & Community Engagement
The CALM foundational ethics module fosters cultural competency and inclusiveness in practice with others and the community, in line with 1.2 Inclusivity, Equality & Diversity. By integrating the Code of Ethics for Foster Carers within its orientation module, CALM upholds integrity, respect, responsibility and confidentiality promoted through 1.1 Core Values & Ethical Standards.
PCF Section 2 – Leadership, Management & Organisational Development
CALM’s leadership module encourages ethical self-leadership skills for continuous improvement, teamwork with agencies, and transparently managing care/development issues – leveraging policies like 2.1 Leadership & Management. By framing contributions using an enabling approach to articulating ideas in the family ecosystem, and leading through effective change management, CALM leverages the philosophies within 2.7 Continuous Improvement & Development.
PCF Section 3 – Foster Carer Recruitment, Training & Support
Through its extensive peer support networks building and mentoring skills units, the CALM program ensures continuous development opportunities among foster carers per 3.5 Training & Development of Foster Carers and retention through resilience building practices in 3.4 Supervision & Support of Foster Carers.
PCF Section 4 – Child and Youth Development & Wellbeing
The behaviour management, attachment nurturing, and emotional support modules in CALM’s care excellence section promote holistic developmental wellness across physical safety, emotional stability and social circle growth domains. Thereby the curriculum integrates key thrusts of policies like 4.2 Health & Wellbeing combined with a trauma-informed lens from 4.7 Mental Health Support.
PCF Section 5 – Safeguarding, Safety & Welfare
Units on risk planning, care planning and ethical decision making integrated across CALM uphold vigilant safeguarding per 5.1 Safeguarding, while behavioural management strategies enable dignity provisions through 5.2 Safer Caring, and first aid response preparedness steps ensure welfare response readiness as in 5.6 Incidents.
PCF Section 6 - Staff Operations
While oriented towards foster carers, leadership skills built through CALM like allegation management processes, peer support etc. and knowledge reinforcement of agency support resources translate uplifting capabilities in line with 6.2 Staff Supervision & Support.
PCF Section 7 – Administrative Compliance & Information Management
Legal literacy sets the precedence for procedural prudence regarding reporting duties, data protections, reviewing mechanisms participation etc, thereby streamlining administrative compliance and information management dimensions upheld in 7.4 Information Sharing & Confidentiality.