What is fostering?

Fostering is looking after someone else’s child or children in your home as part of your family. There are all sorts of reasons why children need to be fostered, and children of all ages may need to spend some time being fostered.

Each child who is ‘looked after’ has a care plan that details the kind of support they need. For the majority of children the plan will be to get them back with their families as soon as possible, and two-thirds of children return home within six months.

Being part of your family

Fostering is a family undertaking and every member of the family will be involved. Working with the foster child’s family is a key aspect of fostering both to enable the fostered child to keep in contact with his or her family, but also to help the child to return to his or her birth family as soon as practical.

Being part of a team

Fostering means caring for children in your own home, but being a foster carer is different from being a parent, because you are part of a professional team that is caring for a child. All children in foster care have a social worker who visits them regularly. You will be asked to take part in meetings with the social worker and other child care professionals about plans for the child's future - because you will have unique insights into the child's personality, hopes and fears.

Working with parents

Foster carers have an important role to play in helping keep families together by working alongside parents. Because most children eventually go back home, they want and need to see their parents regularly while they are living with you - and many foster carers find that they develop very positive relationships with the parents of the children they foster. Sometimes it's very helpful for parents if we arrange 'shared care' to help them get things back to normal - for example, a child might live at home for part of the week, and with you for the rest.