Fostering teenagers
A significant number of children who need foster carers are teenagers, both girls and boys.
Most of these children will have had difficulties at home. They come from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds, including unaccompanied minors, who will need support and help in adjusting to living in a new country.
All Fostering Agencies are seeking to recruit foster carers for older children.
There are no particular people who make successful foster carers for teenagers. They include single people, couples, black carers and gay and lesbian carers. Before fostering they have usually had experience of caring for teenagers, either through raising their own family, or through having contact in other ways, for example through their work. As foster carers for teenage children, they also share a genuine enjoyment in working with teenagers and a commitment to promoting their welfare.
Ages of Rights and Responsibilities
10 years
A child can be convicted of a criminal offence if they know they were doing wrong
12 years
Buy an animal as a pet
13 years
Open a bank account
14 years
A person is fully responsible for any crime they commit and the police can take fingerprints
Work part-time with the teenager's school's consent
Go into a pub with an adult (but the teenager can't drink alcohol)
Be convicted of a crime
Be convicted of rape (if a boy) and illegal sex with a girl under sixteen
16 years
Claim social security benefits in their own right
Drink some alcohol with a meal in a pub (but not at the bar)
Get married (with parents' permission)
Join a trade union Leave home to live independently. (Scottish law allows young people to leave home legally at sixteen years of age. In England and Wales sixteen year olds can leave home only with parental consent.)
Leave school
Take your driving test (if disabled)
The age of consent for legal sex (including homosexual consent in England, Scotland and Wales; age of consent for homosexual sex in Northern Ireland is 17.)
Work full-time
17 years
A person can drive a car and pilot an aeroplane
Go into a betting shop (but not bet)
Be tried before an adult court and sent to prison or fined up to £2,000
18 years
Leave home or marry without parental consent
Vote
Drink alcohol in a pub
Own a house or land
Sign contracts
Apply for loans and credit cards
Make a will
Do jury service
Donate blood or organs
21 years
A person can adopt a child
Stand for election for parliament or local government
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