Fostering

What is Foster Care?
How does fostering differ from adoption?
Why do children need fostering?
Why is there a need for Foster Carers?
Why do we need more Foster Carers?
Who can be a Foster Carer?
What are the different types of fostering?
What is private fostering?

Foster care provides the opportunity for a looked after child to live in a family environment rather than living in a residential setting.

Foster carers are members of the public who have been assessed, approved and are trained and supported to care for other people's children. They will strive to maintain a child's routine and meet his or her assessed needs. The child's parents often continue to have responsibilities for their child when he or she is in foster care.

Foster carers are not qualified as such, but they go through a rigorous process of assessment, training and checks before approval as foster carers by HSS Trusts. All Foster Carers have Police checks and medicals. Social Workers will also have satisfied themselves that the care and accommodation is suitable.

Fostering is often a temporary arrangement and many fostered children return to their own families. Children who cannot return home but still want to stay in touch with their families often live in long-term foster care. There is the potential to secure a permanent family for some foster children through adoption.

Adoption is where a new family is provided for children who can no longer live with their own family. An adoption order transfers the child’s legal relationship from their birth family to the new adoptive family.

Children need to be fostered when their families are unable to look after them. Sometimes its for a few weeks when a parent is ill, whilst other children, who may have been neglected or abused, may spend several months in temporary foster care whilst Social Workers and the Courts decide how best to safeguard their future.

Children of all ages may need temporary Foster Care. Children often need to come into foster care with brothers and sisters. It important to keep them together so it helps to have foster carers who can take two or possibly three children.

All children who need looked after will be distressed to some extent, by their separation from parents. Wherever possible, children are prepared for this separation and foster carers play a major role in maintaining family contact.

Some children may be removed under traumatic circumstances, as a result of abuse and can present significant emotional and behavioural problems. They will need sensitive and patient care.

Foster carers make a big difference to children's lives. Children may arrive with a carer upset and angry. Their parents may be overwhelmed by the demands of parenting. The foster carer may through his/her contribution, be able to assist both to learn and grow in confidence in their relationship with one another.

Foster carers will need to develop a wide range of skills. Not only will they build on their abilities as carers, they will also need to learn to speak on behalf of the children they look after and help them to lead a more fulfilled life.

All foster carers receive initial training and will have individual support workers who are known as "supervising social workers".

Foster carers are paid allowances and additional payments may be available related to the particular needs of the children placed with them.

On any one day, around 2,500 children and young people are living with foster carers in Northern Ireland. Many more move in and out of foster homes during the year. In order to provide these children with the highest standard of care, each one should be able to live with a foster carer carefully chosen to meet their specific needs. To achieve this, we need a large pool of highly skilled and well-trained foster carers from a wide range of backgrounds. This will enable HSS Trusts to improve placement choice, facilitate the better matching of children with carer and improve the outcomes for the children.

A Foster Carer may be:

However it is important to:

Kinship care is the term used for fostering by family and friends. The first objective of a HSS Trust for children it is looking after, or it is about to look after, is to “ensure that children are securely attached to carers capable of providing safe and effective care for the duration of their childhood”. Family and friends care is one option set in the context of achieving emotional permanence for children. In many circumstances, care by family and friends will be a good option for individual children and should be considered, where it is in the best interests of the child.

The 3 essential elements associated with such care are:

Short term fostering can be anything from an overnight stay to three months. There may be illness or problems in the family or the child may have been harmed in some way. Short term fostering provides a place for a child to live while social services work with the child’s family. The aim is to get the child home to its own family as soon as possible.

If short term fostering is extended beyond 3 months, it becomes known as intermediate fostering. This can last up to 2 years.

Sometimes a child cannot go back and live with their own family. Long term fostering allows a child to grow up in safe environment for an indefinite period. Many children in long term foster care remain in contact with their birth parents, brothers and sisters and wider family circle.

Emergency care is used when social workers feel it is essential to remove the child from a particular situation, for example if a child has been left at home alone or a lone parent is taken into hospital. Emergency care is usually up to three days and Emergency carers need to be prepared to take a child into their home at short notice and maybe in the middle of the night.

Short break, or respite, care is usually when carers have children to stay for a short time so that families with disabled children can have a regular break. A child might stay for a few hours each week or a weekend every month. It might also include giving a break to full-time foster carers while they take a holiday.

If a child cannot return to its own family then adoption will be considered. The pre-adoption foster carers help the child prepare for the move to a new family and help the adoptive family understand the child’s needs and prepare for their arrival.

Some school-age mothers need foster carers to support them and help them care for their babies. They need people who can teach and encourage them without taking over their responsibilities as mothers.

This is when a child lives with an adult who is not a parent or relative or an approved foster carer.

Private foster carers are not approved foster carers and many have had no training to become foster carers. Families find these carers themselves and it is the parent’s responsibility to ensure that the carers are suitable. However, HSS Trusts have clear responsibilities towards privately fostered children in order to discharge their general duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. Circular CC1/02 gives details about private fostering.

A child has to live with the non-relative carer for more than 28 days to be privately fostered.