Types of foster care placements

Some children need a foster home for just a night or two, while others may be with their foster parents for months or even years.

This means there is a choice of ways to foster, so you’re able to find something that suits your skills, personality and family dynamic best. That way, you get more out of the experience, which means the children will too.

And as your fostering career develops, you may choose to attend additional training so you’re able to specialise in a certain type of fostering.

Different types of fostering

Emergency fostering

Sometimes, children come into foster care at very short notice – for example, if there’s domestic abuse at home. With these fostering placements, there’s very little warning and the child or young person will be with you for a very short time – perhaps even just one night.

Short-term foster care - foster parent with looked after children

Short-term fostering

Short-term care can be anything from a night or two, a couple of weeks, or even a few years. In many cases, this will be just as long as it takes to get the child back safely together with their birth family or moved into a long-term foster placement, but there are other reasons too.

Long-term fostering

Long-term foster placements provide children and young people with a stable, loving family home environment with a dedicated foster parent for at least 2 years, and often until the young person turns eighteen.

Parent & child fostering

Foster parents provide a home to a young expectant mum or a vulnerable parent and their young child – not just to keep them safe, but to help them develop their parenting skills – and typically last around 12 weeks.

Respite fostering

We offer our foster parents up to 22 nights of respite per year, where other carers look after the child in their care for a night or two – or even longer – generally at weekends or during school holidays.

keeping siblings together in foster care

Fostering siblings

We regularly need foster parents for siblings so we can help keep brothers and sisters together. As well as easing anxiety and stress, being together also improves their sense of identity and emotional wellbeing.

Teenagers

Sadly, there are many teenagers in foster care who need the unconditional love and support of a foster parent, who can offer stability, guidance and support throughout this crucial stage of their life.

Children with disabilities

Fostering a child with a disability can be challenging but it’s also incredibly rewarding, and we provide specialist training and support to ensure you have all the skills you need to help a child thrive.

Foster parent pay for fostering unaccompanied refugee minors

Asylum-seeking child

When an asylum-seeking child arrives in the UK without a parent or guardian, the local authority becomes legally responsible for their health, safety and wellbeing, and will find them a suitable foster family.

Download our finance guide today

Discover everything you need to know about fostering allowances, tax relief, benefits and pensions by downloading our Guide to Fostering Finances.

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