Our Story
Assured Fostering was established in March 2023 by two owners with over 15 years fostering experience and who remain at the heart of the agency. Although based in Bolton, we work with local authorities across the North West. We have a dedicated staff team with extensive social work experience within the fostering sector who have supported fostering families for over 23 years.
Our ethos is to be a ‘family feel‘ fostering agency offering a personal approach to our foster carers, getting to know you and encouraging you to develop your skills and capabilities which, in turn, will help you build strong relationships with children you care for and help them reach their full potential.
Assured Fostering Agency – Mission
Our key objective is to develop services in order to allow children to develop and grow within the five key outcomes areas of “Every Child Matters”:
- Be healthy
- Stay safe
- Enjoy and achieve
- Make a positive contribution
- Achieve economic wellbeing
Vision – The core values of Assured Fostering are:-
- Work within the Fostering Regulations and, not only meet but exceed the expectations of the National Minimum Standards.
- Recruit and invest in our staff team to provide support to our carers, the children they look after and to work closely with Local Authorities.
- To provide high quality care and achieve positive outcomes for children and young people.
- Deliver strong support to our carers and enhance their skills through extensive training packages.
Meet our owners
Rukhsana – Director and Responsible Individual
Hello I am Rukhsana Amla. I am the Director and Responsible Individual for Assured fostering. As the Responsible Individual for Assured Fostering, I am responsible for ensuring that the agency complies with all relevant legislative requirements, and adheres to, and exceeds wherever possible the National Minimum Standards, as well as good practice and safer recruitment guidance. I will also be responsible, in conjunction with the Registered Manager, for ensuring that staff and foster carers receive the appropriate ongoing training and have the experience to fully discharge their duties and responsibilities.
In my free time, I enjoy keeping up to date with worldly affairs. I am also an avid reader. I love spending time with family and friends. I also enjoy travelling and exploring different cultures.
What is your background in fostering?
My practical experience with regards to fostering has primarily been achieved from acting as a backup / respite foster carer for a substantive (mainstream) foster carer, for over 15 years. During this time, I became aware of, and worked within, a regulatory framework, set out by the Fostering Service Regulations (2011) and National Minimum Standards for fostering (2011). I was fortunate in being able to gain experience in caring for a range of children and young people of all ages, and from differing cultural and religious backgrounds. This gave me insight and a good understanding of fostering and the need to ensure that any service, whether fostering or other, has the ability to meet a range of differing needs and abilities in terms of supporting adults to care for vulnerable and traumatised children.
The above knowledge has also been supplemented by my substantive career working within an education setting. I have worked within a primary school setting for over 13 years and developed a good understanding of child development, the impact of trauma on children’s development and understanding of the need for stability and consistency in their lives.
How did the idea of creating Assured Fostering come about?
The idea of Assured Fostering came about because we, myself and the co-owner, Tasnim, wanted to give children who have experienced trauma a chance to build a good future in supportive families. Through experience, we know what a big difference a good placement can make in a child’s life. We also want to give back to our community and do this by supporting children and families in and around our local area. We have experienced the gaps that are in fostering and our aim is to close these at Assured Fostering by working alongside local authorities and other professionals and families involved with children who need support. We thoroughly enjoyed fostering and now we want our carers to enjoy it as much as we did by offering a loving home and support to make a difference to the lives of children who need it!
What do you feel makes Assured Fostering a special fostering agency?
Assured Fostering is a family-owned agency with a family feel team. Myself and Tasnim have hands on experience of fostering so they know of, and have had experience of what looking after vulnerable children takes. Our team are highly experienced and knowledgeable in all aspects of fostering for an independent fostering agency and have many years experience of supporting foster carers. Our aim is to ensure foster carers are fully supported and looked after so that they are fully ready to look after our children.
What would you say to anyone who is looking to foster with Assured Fostering?
Assured fostering is a unique agency because, myself and Tasnim, know what fostering entails through our personal experiences. Fostering brings many rewards however is not without its challenges at times and because we have experienced these as carers ourselves, we want to ensure that we look after our foster carers as we know the hard work they put into looking after our children.
We want our foster carers to develop good relationships with our staff and other foster carers so they feel part of our team, are fully supported and know that they have support, 24/7 if they are unsure of anything or if a situation gets difficult.
Tasnim – Co Owner
Hello. I am Tasnim, the co- owner of Assured Fostering.
What is your background in fostering?
I am a former mainstream foster carer of over 15 years with two independent fostering agencies. During this time I fostered several children and young people and thoroughly enjoyed being a foster carer.
As a foster carer I cared for children with individual and often very different needs and from various backgrounds. This experience has given me an insight into the needs of children in foster care and how they can be supported along with and understanding of the beliefs and cultures of children and young people from different backgrounds and religions to myself.
Throughout my fostering career I was able to used my experience to support many new foster carers through their application and assessment process and support them in their training and carrying out their fostering roles. I really enjoyed assisting new carers through to approval and beyond and to see them develop into confident foster carers.
In my free time I love socializing and spending time with my family and friends.
How did the idea of creating assured fostering come about?
My vision for setting up Assured Fostering was, and remains, to meet the growing need for quality assured placements for children unable to live with their families by offering the highest standards of care for children and young people whilst providing real placement choice for local authorities. My expectation of Assured Fostering is that, in addition to exceeding all of the national standards, our foster carers homes will be places where I would be happy for my own children to stay.
What do you feel makes assured fostering a special fostering agency?
I feel Assured Fostering is special because as owners. Rukhsana and I, have had ‘hands on’ experience as foster carers so we know the challenges of looking after vulnerable children. Assured Fostering is a family-owned agency and our team is highly experienced and motivated in ensuring we make everyone feel part of the Assured Fostering family.
What would you say to anyone who is looking to foster with assured fostering.
From experience I understand what carers want from their fostering agency therefore my aim is to ensure that Assured Fostering supports carers, from enquiry, through application and assessment and into their future roles as foster carers to maximise the care they will offer to our children.
