Fostering FAQ’s

Fostering is a service for children, young people, and their families.

There are many reasons why some children and young people cannot live with their own family, this may include family breakdown, poor health, and safeguarding issues.

Fostering provides a loving, safe, and nurturing home for children and young people who are unable to remain living with their own family. Some children and young people live with foster carers for a brief period until the time is right for them to return home to their own family. However, for many children it is not in their best interest to return to live with their own family and they remain with their foster carers on a longer-term arrangement until they become young adults.

Yes of course you will be paid as a foster carer. It is expensive to look after a child or young person and as a foster carer you will be paid a weekly allowance which includes money to cover the cost of looking after the child or young person who is part of your family but also a professional fee because as a foster carer you also earn an income.

As a foster carer you are self-employed and therefore eligible for tax and national Insurance.

As a foster carer you will be eligible for national insurance credits which help towards your state pension. At CFS, we will guarantee you will receive all the professional help and guidance you need on tax and national insurance to ensure its all stress free and nothing to worry about.

You will receive all the support and guidance you need from our expert team 24/7.

You will have your own allocated Supervising Social Worker as well as Support Worker and a team of experts from our Therapy service who will be on hand to support you all the way on your fostering journey. And of course, you all be part of our fostering family and will meet regularly with other foster carers in your local area.

From the moment you start your fostering journey with CFS, we make sure that you receive all the training you need. The training and development start with an Introductory Skills to foster course which will help you to learn all about fostering and the role of the foster carer. Once you are approved, we will guide you through a comprehensive mandatory training programme. All our training is available online, but we know that as adults we all learn differently and it is important that we get together on occasions for face-to-face training, and which can make it much more fun and sociable.

As a foster carer you will be busy looking after the child/young person in your care and making their needs a primary focus. As you can imagine being a foster carer is a full-time job. There will be daily trips to and from school, meetings to attend, medical appointments and social activities. Given the demands of the fostering role it is not always compatible with working alongside. However. Some foster carers do manage to work part time with flexible arrangements without compromising their full-time responsibilities as a foster carer. At CFS, we are happy to discuss work and advise on a case-by-case basis.

Initial Enquiry

Now that you have considered the possibility of becoming a foster carer the first thing you need to do is contact us by leaving your mobile number and we get in touch, and we have a chat about your interest in fostering.

Home visit

If you wish to proceed and we agree that is the right thing to do, then we will arrange to visit you at home and discuss fostering in more detail and consider the next stages.

Application form

When you make your decision to become a foster carer, we will help you to complete an application form and then we can get started on your assessment.

Assessment

Once we have received your completed application form, you will be allocated a Social Worker, who will visit you at home over a period of months to complete you are your assessment report. This is the part in the process where you get to share all your life experiences including the good times and the not so good times. All your life’s experiences are relevant and helps us to learn more about you and know your potential strengths as a foster carer and your training needs and where you might need more support when you start your new career as a foster carer.

Checks

As part of the assessment process, we will need to do some checks including Health and Safety, Health and DBS, Local authorities.  We will also need to request professional and personal references from your employer as well as some of your family and friends. We may also need to speak to your ex-partners if it considered relevant to the assessment. Do not worry about this as we can discuss with you in detail and together, we can agree if it is the right thing to do.

Fostering panel

When your assessment is completed, it will be presented to our fostering panel which is a group of people with experience of fostering and working with children. The panel will then consider all the information in the assessment report and make a positive recommendation for you to be approved as a foster carer.

Agency Decision Maker

After the panel has made a positive recommendation, you are there. The final decision is made by a senior manager in the fostering agency and once the decision is made, you will be a fully approved foster carer and ready to welcome a child or young person into your home.

There is a lot of work involved in becoming a foster carer and although it is not a complicated process it is not a quick one. On average we would expect the assessment and approval process to take between four and six months.

It may sound like a long time, but it is worth it, and we will be with you every step of the way giving you full support and training and getting you ready to start your new career as a foster carer.

Because each child and young person is unique and their needs and circumstances are different, there is a range of fostering options available. Foster carers can choose a particular type of fostering which best suits their interests, skills, and circumstances:

Emergency

Emergency foster placements are where a child/young person has been removed from their family unexpectedly due to a crisis which may include safeguarding concerns. The child/young person needs to be taken to a safe environment in an emergency. longer term plan can be agreed which could include returning home to the care of the family or remaining in fostering and moving to a Short-Term Placement.

Short Term

Short Term fostering is when children and young people live with foster carers until a decision is made for them to either return to their family or remain in foster care. There is an exact time limit on Short Term, and it could be anything from a couple of week and months or two years. A placement will be referred to as Short Term until a longer-term plan has been agreed.

Long Term

Long term fostering is where there is an agreed care plan for a child/young person to remain in foster carer until they reach 18. When a Long-Term fostering has been agreed it is usually with the foster carer that has been looking after the child/young person on a Short-Term basis. Long Term fostering is also referred as Permanent Fostering.

Respite

Respite fostering is when a child/young person is placed with a foster carer for an agreed brief period ranging from a weekend to a fortnight. Respite placements with foster carers are usually arranged to give the child/young person’s permanent foster carers a rest specially if the child/young person has complex needs or challenging behaviours. Not only can Respite fostering provide a much-needed service to other foster carers it can also be a fun and exciting time for the children and young people and be like a mini holiday.

Parent and Child

Parent and Child placement is sometimes referred to as Mother and baby placement. These are very specialist placements where a mother and baby live with specially trained foster carers to receive specialist guidance and support in relation to parenting skills and where safeguarding risks have been identified.

Step Down

Step Down placements are when a child or young person moves from residential children’s home to a foster placement. Some children who come into care are placed in a residential home because at the time it was considered that they needed to be in a safe environment it was decided that a children’s home was the most suitable option, or a suitable foster placement was unfortunately not available at the time. In other cases, a child or young person may have been placed with foster carers but because of their specific challenges with behaviour it was assessed that a residential children’s home would be the most suitable environment for a brief period of time.  Although a children’s home can keep a child safe and provide a safe and caring environment, we believe that wherever possible all children should have the opportunity to be part of a family and for this reason, we work closely with the local authority to support plans to move children out of residential homes and into one of our foster homes with our specially trained foster carers. When this happens, it is known as Step Down because we are stepping down the level of care the child/young person needs and supporting the fostering plan.

Yes, fostering is for all the family and everyone in your household needs to be involved in the decision to foster. We will work with you and your family during the assessment and preparation stage to make sure that when you are approved everyone is ready to welcome a child/young person into the family. It can be incredibly positive for children and young people to be placed with a fostering family where there are other children, and we will make sure that the children placed are a suitable match for you and your family.

All children in the care system are the responsibility of local authorities. When Children’s services departments are looking to place a child with a foster carer, they will always look for the most suitable match for the child or young person and they will often choose to place with CFS because of the quality of our fostering service. At CFS, we work in close partnership with local authorities to ensure the best possible outcomes for the children and young people placed with our foster carers.

As a prospective foster carer, it is your choice whether you want to be approved with a local authority or with an IFA, Independent fostering agency such as CFS. All foster carers are approved under the same legislation and standards, so it just comes down to personal choice. At CFS, we work hard to encourage you to join our dedicated team and enjoy the notable benefits of fostering with us with the guaranteed promise of the highest standards of supervision and support, plus a very favourable and competitive financial package and access to all the training you need at every stage along the way on your fostering journey.

Adoption and fostering have different legal definitions.

When a child is adopted, their adoptive parents have parental responsibility.

When a child or young person is placed foster carers, it is much more a collaborative arrangement between the foster carers, the local authority, and the birth parents. Unlike adoptive parents, foster carers never have parental responsibility for the children and young people they look after.

Yes, if you are a smoker, which includes vaping, you can still become a foster carer although there will be restrictions on the children that we can place with you. If you or any member of the fostering household is a smoker, we will not place A child under 5 years of age or any child/young person with a diagnosed medical condition that could be exacerbated by smoke.

At CFS we will not lecture you about the health risks associated with smoking. However, as a foster carer you are required to be a positive role model to children and young people and therefore, we would expect that you do not smoke or vape in your home or car. Preferable, we would ask that you avoid where smoking or vaping in front of your foster child.

Are you over 21?

Do you have a spare bedroom?

Do you have permanent leave to remain in the UK?

If you can say yes to these three basic questions, then you can explore the potential of becoming a foster carer. You might be surprised how wide the eligibility is to become a foster carer. We need to recruit foster carers from wide and diverse backgrounds to meet the needs of the diverse group of children and young people who need a foster home. At CFS, we will explore your potential to become a foster carer.

There are several things which could prevent you from becoming a foster carer such as having a criminal conviction for a violent offence or owning an animal from the banned list which would be a potential risk to children and young people.

Yes, absolutely they can. At CFS, you will never experience any discrimination or prejudice because of your sexuality or gender. We welcome potential foster carers from all diverse walks of life.

You can be too young to foster if you are under 21 but never too old. There is no upper age limit to becoming a foster carer. Do not let your age get in the way of considering a new career as a foster carer.

Yes, you will need a spare room to foster.

21 is the minimum age to becoming a foster carer

Is there a maximum age to becoming a foster carer?

You need to be aged 21 to become a foster carer but there is no upper age limit. You are never too old, and we would like to hear from you regardless of what stage you are at in life.

Yes, absolutely. You do not have to be married or in a relationship to being a foster carer. Many of foster carers at CFS are single people enjoying a positive career as a foster carer.

No, you do not need to own your own home, but you do need to have a suitable accommodation and a secure tenancy agreement.

AT CFS, we will never discriminate on the grounds of disability. As with all applicants, we will work with you and explore your potential and see which type of fostering is right for you.

Yes, you can foster if you have a criminal record, but it depends on when the offences occurred and the types of offences. The criminal offending happened a long time ago at a much different time in your life and it is all in the past. There are however some offences which will also disqualify a person from becoming a foster carer and these are related to criminal offending of a violent nature where there was a victim and of course any offences against children at any time is a definite obstacle to becoming a foster carer.

Yes, if you have small children you can foster. During the assessment process, we will help you decide the age of the children that would be a more suitable match to fit in with your family.

No, there are no specific qualifications and experience required to becoming a foster carer.

Some experience of working with children either in a personal or professional context is a definite advantage but not essential. If your experience of working with children is limited, we can help you with this through training and support.

Being able to drive and having access to a car daily is an advantage for a foster carer. The average day can be busy and demanding with trips to school and a full range of other appointments and the demands on a carers time can be increased if there is a reliance on public transport.