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Bernadette Jones - Placements Manager for Cymru South
Bernadette Jones is a qualified and experienced professional with an honours degree in Psychology and Sociology, a post graduate degree in Education and a Level 4 National Vocational Qualification in Management.
Bernadette worked in a variety of roles while her children were young, including administrative and retail jobs from Local Authorities to supermarkets. In one role, she worked at the Job Centre, waiting for a teaching post to come up in her local area. It was during this time that a close friend rang Bernadette to ask if any clients were appropriate to take up an administrative post at FCA. A number of clients proved unsuitable for the role and, while finding out more about the job and the company, Bernadette became intrigued with FCA. She decided to ‘try it out’ herself for a while – and that was almost 12 years ago!
The daily work of a fostering placements team
The main responsibility of the placements team at Cymru South is to take referrals from Local Authorities seeking foster placements. However, the average day can include a huge variety in the work Bernadette and her colleagues undertake.
“We arrange respite placements for our carers, ensure that our carers receive their payments, work closely with our Recruitment Team to ensure that we recruit carers in the right areas and with the right skills to enable us to offer young people the best possible foster placements,” says Bernadette. “In total, we work in partnership with 16 Local Authorities in our region. We regularly go out to meet them, not only to discuss the young people already placed with us, but to see if we can help in any other way.”
A rewarding role with FCA Cymru
For Bernadette, the most rewarding part of her role as Placements Manager is witnessing the success that FCA works so hard to achieve:
“The best part is seeing our young people flourish in their foster placements, and even beyond. Some young people go on to achieve unbelievable things and I take pride in the knowledge that I played my part in that process. I’m just so very proud to be part of the FCA family!”
