During the five years I have been part of By the Bridge the company has really grown, but no matter what has changed I have always felt valued and there has been someone at By the Bridge that I could turn to no matter how big or small the problem. Working together
- Each By the Bridge family has a dedicated mentor who telephones every week and visits their home every month to pre-empt and anticipate difficulties, recognise successes, ensure standards and offer help or guidance as and when required.
- They also join in, for example, professionals meetings and reviews and are the lynch pins of our organisation – many have fostered children themselves.
- Our families gather in geographical clusters for monthly group supervision and for networking with each other. The combination of this and their mentor means they can really reflect on the complexities of their work.
- Every morning the staff, including our Managing Director, gather to hear about and discuss key events in the lives of our foster children – they are at the heart of all our decisions.
- Our organisational structure is designed to optimise team working and allow innovation to flourish– we work hard for personal job satisfaction, close connection to the families and economies of scale which allow us to invest in new projects and improve our services.
- We have numerous activities to help our sense of connection with each other, including co-foster parent groups, ‘children who foster’ days, family days out, craft afternoons, summer fun days and outings, Christmas parties, office tea@3 on Fridays, monthly newsletters…
