Children who need foster care
Children who need to be fostered come from lots of different backgrounds and have usually experienced some form of abuse, trauma and loss. Children who need fostering are aged up to and including 17 years of age.
Foster carer's first priority is to keep children safe by providing them with a safe home untill they can return to their own parents or if not, to prepare them to stay in care long term.
A foster carer is not the same as being a birth parent, and as a foster carer you never have legal parental responsibility (PR) unless applied for to a court. However, you will need to make the same commitment in caring for a child, keeping them safe and giving a child the best possible start in life.
Foster carers are very important within our diverse, multi cultural society and most importantly to the many children whose lives are changed because of the safe, caring and supportive foster family in which they have lived.
Foster carers come from varied backgrounds but all share a common interest in the safety and welfare of children and having the space and capacity in their lives to share their home and family to work with vulnerable children.
Timescales
In our experience, Local Authorities take six months and Independent Fostering Agencies take an average of four months to complete the foster carer assessment. However Local Authorities are catching up.
More information...Foster care course
As your application proceeds you will be invited to attend a fostercare training course, most Fostering Agencies use the Fostering Network course called "Skills to Foster".
More information...Assessment
The fostering social worker will visit you and your family at home. It is important that you discuss fostering with your children at an early stage and check out how they feel about being part of a fostering family.
More information...
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