One of the first questions people have is whether they would be considered suitable to foster a child or young person. The good news is you can foster if you are single, married, in a same sex relationship, divorced or living with a partner. It doesn’t matter if you live in your own house, council housing or rented accommodation, or if you’re working, unemployed or retired.
Fostering is a huge subject to cover, at its most basic it’s caring for someone else’s child on behalf of the fostering service for anything from a few days up to a decade or more depending on the type of fostering.
There are a lot of options available to you as a foster carer, probably more than you think. There are different types of fostering that can fit around what time you can offer to look after a child, different ages of children and how long a child can stay with you.
We are looking for certain skills and qualities in our foster carers. We ask our carers to look after vulnerable children who need a caring place to stay. This is assessed through a process that involves training and background checks. Though there are certain things that will rule you out as a foster carer, there are probably fewer than you think.
Hopefully the information within these web pages will encourage you to take the next step into fostering. We have got many children and young people who would get a great deal from being part of a family like yours.
If you’re interested in being a foster carer, we’d really like to hear from you.