Building trust with a foster child is one of the most important – and sometimes most challenging – aspects of fostering. Many children in the foster care system have experienced disruption, loss, or trauma. As foster carers, we work hard to build a safe, predictable, and nurturing environment. One powerful way to help forge that trust is through arts and craft. Using creative, hands-on activities offers a gentle, non-verbal route to connection and healing. Here’s how you can use arts and craft to build trust with foster children in your care.
1. A Safe Space for Self-Expression
Foster children often carry deep, complex emotions – sadness, fear, confusion – that they may not be able or ready to verbalise. Arts and craft provide a safe outlet for emotional expression. Drawing, painting, clay modelling or collaging allows a child to communicate in a way that feels less threatening than direct conversation. When you sit alongside them, encouraging but not directing, you give them the freedom to explore their thoughts, memories, or worries in a secure environment.
2. Building a Consistent, Trusting Routine
Consistency is a key foundation in fostering trust. In the context of craft time, establishing a regular creative session (for example, a weekly “arty hour”) can become part of the predictable structure that foster children rely on. Over time, as they come to know that these sessions happen regularly, they learn to anticipate and trust that these quiet, caring moments are for them. This consistent one-to-one creative time reinforces your reliability as a foster caregiver.
3. Collaboration and Bonding Through Joint Projects
Working on a craft together – whether it’s painting a mural, making a memory box or building a clay sculpture – promotes collaboration. This shared activity helps foster children feel heard, respected, and included in family life. By letting the child take the lead, making joint decisions about colours, shapes or materials, you communicate that their ideas matter. As you bond over shared creative decisions, trust grows naturally.
4. Boosting Self-Esteem and Empowerment
When a foster child completes a piece of work – no matter how small – they experience a real sense of accomplishment. That feeling of achievement helps rebuild self-worth, especially if they have previously felt powerless or disempowered. You can support and validate their effort: praise their creativity, display their artwork, or give them a keepsake box. This kind of positive reinforcement helps them see that you believe in their talents and value their voice.
5. Trauma-Sensitive Approach Through Art
Craft activities can be trauma-informed: they can be slow, sensory, and child-led. For children who have experienced instability, providing tactile materials like clay, textured paper, or natural collage items gives them a grounded, calming way to reconnect with their body and environment. You don’t need to pressure them to talk about difficult things right away. Over time, as trust builds, their art may become a silent bridge to deeper conversations about their experiences and feelings.
6. Life Story Work and Personal Narrative
Many fostering professionals use life story work to help children piece together their past, present, and future in a meaningful way. You can adapt this by incorporating arts and craft: encourage children to draw their history, paint key memories, or create a scrapbook. Through this creative life story work, foster children can gradually explore their identity, feel seen, and process aspects of their journey. For you as a foster carer, engaging in this process shows your commitment to understanding and valuing their story.
7. Trust Through Choice and Autonomy
Giving foster children choices in their craft – what to make, which colours to use, which materials – reinforces their sense of agency. Too often, children in care feel they lack control. By handing over the creative reins, you help them practice decision-making in a safe, controlled way. Letting them choose what to create sends a powerful message: “I trust your judgement, and I respect your individuality.”
8. Low-Pressure Communication
Art isn’t demanding. It doesn’t require verbal skill, and it doesn’t force children to share more than they’re ready to. During crafting, conversations can happen organically, or silence can simply be comfortable. That low-stakes setting lets trust and communication and c emerge slowly. You can reflect on their work, ask gentle open-ended questions, or simply sit in companionship without seeking anything in return except presence.
Conclusion
Art and craft are more than just fun pastimes – they are powerful tools in fostering. By incorporating creative activities into daily or weekly routines, foster carers can create a nurturing, consistent, and emotionally safe space for foster children to express themselves, build confidence, and connect. These moments of creativity build bridges, inch by inch cultivating trust, healing, and a sense of belonging in a world that might once have felt uncertain.
If you’re a foster carer looking to deepen your bonding with your foster child, why not try introducing a regular arts and craft session? Even simple materials and shared time can lay down strong foundations for trust that last a lifetime.
Are you interested in becoming a foster carer with Beacon? Start the application process now