Foster Parents’ Responsibilities

Chapter Contents

The use of technology, and going online, have become part of everyday life for both young people and adults in the UK. Young people start using online information and services at a young age, both at home and in the school environment.  Helping keep them safe online is an essential part of caring for children and young people.

Keeping young people safe online involves two things:

  1. Using parental controls to block and filter age-inappropriate content.
  2. Teaching young people to recognise and avoid risks so that they learn to keep themselves safe online.

It is not important for you to understand how all the technology works, but it is important that you are able to talk about online behaviour and risks with your young people. ISP will provide training to help you with this. We understand that children in foster care can be more vulnerable to online risks than other young people due to past life experiences, and our wish is to help them participate safely in online social activities.

For more information, see our E-Safety Practice Guidance Procedure and Monitoring & Surveillance of Children & Young People policy.

Book on our training course: Internet & Mobile Safety

You must have a computer at home that your young people can use to complete school work, and go online for both educational and leisure purposes.

In addition, you will usually be asked to provide young people with a mobile phone when they reach secondary school age. Parental controls should be applied in the same way as for home computers – in line with the risk assessment. If you choose to provide other technology, including tablets and gaming devices, then you must apply parental controls wherever possible. You can get advice and instructions to help you do this at:

www.internetmatters.org/parental-controls

Book on our training course: Parental Controls

You should discuss online safety with young people to promote safe online behaviour. A Home Agreement that outlines acceptable online use can be a helpful way of setting boundaries with young people.

Internet Home Agreement

You must take reasonable steps to monitor and supervise children’s online activities. What this involves will differ from child to child, according to their individual behaviours and varying risk factors.  The risk assessment and safer care plan should outline action needed for each young person. 

  • Talk to young people about what they do online. Ask them to show you how things work.
  • Find out about the websites and apps that are popular with young people. There are lots of “parent guides” online to help with this.  You can find these at NSPCC
  • Set parental control filters on your home broadband router. There are online guides to doing this. See the Internet Matters website www.internetmatters.org/parental-controls or call your broadband provider for assistance.
  • Set young people up with their own ‘child’ account on the home computer, and if it is a Windows computer, use Windows Family Safety to set time limits around internet usage and age restrictions on content they can access. Ensure children don’t have administrator rights to your computer as this would allow them to bypass security measures easily.
  • Set age-appropriate parental controls on mobile phones that you provide for young people. The Internet Matters website can guide you in doing this, or ask the mobile phone shop for help and advice.
  • Set parental controls on all internet enabled devices in the home, including smart TVs, and gaming devices. The Internet Matters website can guide you in doing this.
  • Apply all available privacy settings on apps such as Facebook and Instagram. Do this for your own profiles and help young people if necessary to privatise their own accounts.
  • Install internet security software to protect from viruses and other forms of cyber-attack. Well known providers include Norton, McAfee and AVG.
  • If you are looking after very young children, use a search engine designed for children. A good example is KidzSearch, by Google.
  • Set up a home agreement around the use of technology. This should include keeping computers in family areas.