Who Can Foster?

When it comes to being a foster parent and fostering a child, it’s your personal qualities that count. If you have a spare bedroom and the right to live and work in the UK, you have a good chance. 

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At Choice Fostering we welcome individuals from all walks of life to our fostering family. It's your passion for making a change that matters, not your age, gender, ethnicity, sexuality or religious beliefs. You may be a younger person looking for a unique career, or an older person looking for a new challenge. There aren’t any hard and fast rules about who can foster children and young people, so forget the myths, here is what you need in order to foster in the UK.

 

Foster care requirements in the UK

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• You must be over 21 years old

• You must have a right to live and work in the UK

• You must have a spare bedroom in your house that's always available for a child 

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And that’s just about it… except for having the personal qualities, plenty of patience, commitment and heaps of energy to care for a child or young person and make an invaluable difference to their life.

 

Some important considerations

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While almost anyone can apply to foster, there are some things we’ll take into account during your assessment, so it’s worth you considering them too. We want to make sure you’re right for Choice Fostering, and that our agency is right for you.

 

• Experience of working with children - many of our Foster Carers have (or have had) their own children or have worked with children before in a professional or voluntary capacity. This isn’t essential, but clearly, it helps, if only to give you an insight into the challenges of the work.

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• Health and wellbeing - some of our foster parents have underlying health conditions, or a physical disability or mental health issue, so none are necessarily an obstacle to becoming a foster parent. But it’s important that these won’t affect your ability to look after a child or young person safely. It’s also important that fostering won’t affect your own wellbeing.

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• Financial stability - when you start fostering, we will hope to have children appropriately placed with you whenever you are available to care for them. However, throughout your fostering career, you may experience some periods without a child and so we'll need to work with you to be sure that you'll manage financially during these times, as you only receive the fostering allowance when you have a child in placement.  

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• Home environment - is your home suitable and safe for a child and do you have a spare bedroom that’s always available to them?

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• Enough time in your life - getting children to school and clubs, keeping them occupied in the evenings and weekends or being at home with them if they’re ill; fostering children is a full-time commitment, so we need to be sure you’ve got sufficient time to give them the attention they deserve as part of your family. You'll also need to be available to attend meetings and support children in attending contact sessions with their birth family.  This means that most foster parents don’t have a full-time job, although it’s not necessarily a barrier.

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• Support network - although you are the foster parent, do you have a wider support network – including family members – who support your decision and could add to the experience for the children in your care?

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• Ability to meet the roles and responsibilities of a foster parent - foster parents are naturally caring, compassionate and committed to championing the needs of children in their care. But to be successful, you’ll also need to be a good team player, able to work alongside other care professionals, including social workers, education experts and sometimes therapists.  You will also need to support contact with the child's birth family.

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Find out how to become a Foster Carer. 

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