‘FASD Informed' Foster Carer Programme

Feb 8

3 min read

Updated: Sep 26

From the first session, we look beyond behaviour and understand the 'symptoms' or needs linked to Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD).

Over ten weeks, this specialist led programme supports carers build their understanding and consider take away simple strategies for everyday situations. Topics include processing time, communication, getting stuck on thoughts or actions, regulation, additional needs, education and transitions. The focus throughout is on practical ways to use fewer words, reduce demands, allow more time and adjust expectations to the child or young persons needs.

What carers will gain:

Week 1 — Understanding FASD and the functioning age of the child behind the presentation: Begin with an assumption-free introduction to prenatal alcohol exposure, Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). We consider how an uneven developmental profile can affect everyday functioning, why a child may appear more able than they are, and how to recognise strengths, vulnerabilities and essential safeguarding needs.
Week 2 — Processing speed, memory and fluctuating capacity: Explore why understanding, recall and performance can vary across the day and between environments. We support learning to allow additional processing time, reduce language, breaking information into manageable steps, use repetition and visual prompts, and adjust expectations when capacity is reduced.
Week 3 — Communication, confabulation and accurate understanding: Understand how receptive language, working memory, sequencing and a desire to please can affect what a child says or agrees to. The session explains confabulation without labelling it as deliberate dishonesty and provides practical ways to ask safer questions, check understanding, avoid leading language and build a more reliable picture of events.
Week 4 — Fixed thinking, perseveration and cognitive flexibility: Examine why a child may become stuck on an safe or unsafe topics, question, plan or perceived injustice and find it difficult to shift attention. Carers will practise strategies for reducing verbal debate, offering structured choices, signalling change early, using calm redirection and creating predictable routes out of repetitive thought patterns.
Week 5 — Regulation, stress responses and low-demand support: Consider sensory and emotional regulation, the HPA axis, heightened threat responses and demand avoidance. Carers will develop low-demand approaches that reduce overload without removing supportive boundaries, including co-regulation, fewer instructions, careful pacing, environmental adjustment and planned recovery time.
Week 6 — Looking beneath behaviour and responding to unmet need: Reframe presentations such as refusal, impulsivity, taking items or inconsistent accounts as possible signals of memory, communication, regulation or executive-function difficulty. Carers will use curious, non-shaming responses, identify patterns and triggers, and develop proportionate support that teaches skills rather than relying on consequences alone.
Week 7 — Co-occurring needs, development and learning: Explore how FASD may overlap with attention, sensory, sleep, attachment, communication and learning needs. Carers will consider developmental rather than chronological expectations and create practical scaffolding for routines, independence, relationships and learning while maintaining a strengths-based approach.
Week 8 — FASD-informed education, SEND and EHCP reviews: Translate the child’s profile into clear evidence for schools and professionals. Carers will learn how to describe needs, identify reasonable adjustments, contribute confidently to SEND and EHCP reviews, and advocate for support that reflects processing, memory, regulation, communication and environmental capacity.
Week 9 — Transitions and forward planning: Prepare for changes in placement, carers, routines, classrooms, year groups, holidays and services. The session supports carers to plan further ahead, introduce change gradually, use repeated and visual preparation, maintain familiar anchors and create contingency plans that minimise avoidable distress and disruption.
Week 10 — Sustaining care and planning what comes next: Consolidate learning into an individualised support approach. Carers will review successful strategies, identify early signs of overload, consider vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue, strengthen their own support network, and leave with clear priorities for home, education and professional planning.

Delivery and ongoing support

The programme is delivered online via Zoom and includes certification, practical resources and access to a private peer-to-peer FASD carers’ community.

Additional one-to-one sessions can be booked by appointment, giving carers and services access to more tailored support when circumstances change or are stuck or complex.

To discuss commissioning the programme or to reserve places, email info@fasdinformed.co.uk.