About Us

At Pathway Care we provide young people with the chance to become part of a family, whether for a long or short period of time. Our foster carers provide children with the necessary stability to take the next step towards building a more secure future and achieving their full potential.

Like our name suggests we aim to provide children with a better path, or at least the stepping stones that will lead to a  better future.

Founded in 1996, the Pathway Care Group is one of the UK's leading independent fostering agencies, both in terms of the number of children we look after and the quality and variety of care we provide.

We have a national presence throughout the UK with offices in the South West of England, West and South East Wales, the Midlands and East England. Currently we provide care for nearly 600 children and are continually being quoted by our foster carers as being "a great agency to work for." 

As well as the ten reasons why carers decide to join Pathway Care,  we believe we also stand out from the crowd because of the benefits we offer carers in terms of;  

Support

Support is where our carers tell us we really differentiate from other agencies, all our carers have a dedicated supervising social worker whose specific responsibilty is to ensure that they are properly equipped to look after the children in their care. The social worker will normally visit a carer's home fortnightly to provide them with any support required, in addition a social worker is on hand twenty four hours to deal with any issues that may arise.

Training

All our carers receive comprehensive training during their career, before approval all carers partake in a three day preparation to foster course, which introduces them to the basics of fostering. Throughout their career, all foster carers receive continuous training from both our in house training team and external experts in a variety of specialist topics.

Remuneration

We recognise our foster carers as an important part of the children's workforce and as skilled people who provide an invaluable service to society, as such we pay carers a very competitive rate of pay which is line with other professional careers. Because of the fostering tax allowance, payments to carers are generally exempt from taxation, this means that payments received are very much in line and often well above salaries paid to other professions. On average carers are paid approximately £340 -£390 per child per week, over a year and taking into account the fostering tax allowance, this equates to a similar salary of approximately £22,000.

Bonuses
To reward our carers for their loyalty and dedication we provide various incentives throughout the year, these differ from region to region.

Qualifications

As well as the ongoing training that we provide, all our carers have the opportunity to study for an NVQ level 3 in Caring for Children and Young People.

Social Life 

Many of our carers tell us, that they feel working for Pathway Care is like belonging to part of an extended family. This feeling is reinforced by the many social events and group training days that are organised throughout the year for and by carers. Many life long friendships have been formed as a result of fostering with Pathway Care.