Can I foster? Yes, you can foster

Many of our foster carers are retired and find it gives them the opportunity to dedicate more time to supporting their foster children.

We’re looking for people who are patient, flexible, understanding, determined and keen to learn. You don't need any specific qualifications, but we will look for stability in your life so that we feel you are able to support a child and you have a genuine interest in supporting children.

It can help you if you have previous experience of looking after or you have worked with children. We provide a range of learning, development and training opportunities including the Skills to Foster course for all carers.

Whether you work full time, part time or are not in employment, we want to hear from you.

Many of our foster carers work part time or flexibly so they can enjoy the best of both worlds. If you work full-time, you must be available to take the child to school and be able to look after them during the school holidays. If the child isn't old enough to be at school we'll need you to be available to look after the child full-time.

You’ll also need to be able to attend training sessions and some support groups as well as have the time to regularly meet with your social worker. Some people consider fostering as an alternative to work. This can be possible, but you will need to consider your income between placements. This is because you will only receive an allowance when a child is living with you.

To avoid gaps between when you care for children, our carers will need to be flexible about age or any additional needs of children. It's ok to call us and talk about money with our team as we understand that it is an important consideration for you. We pay generous and competitive allowances and rewards to cover the costs of having a foster child living with you. See the benefits and support page for more information.

Paul shares his experiences of balancing work with caring for foster children:

It doesn’t matter whether you have children of your own or not. Some of our carers have experience of working with children and wanted to use these skills and become a foster carer. Other carers have their own children and know that they’ve done a good job raising them. They wanted to give other children this same good start in life. 

You’ll need to think about the difference that fostering will make to your own children and talk to them about it. Many of our foster carers have found that fostering has been a really positive experience for the rest of the family.

If you do have children, they are our 'supporting stars' and are invited to take part in our special training programme. There are also dedicated groups and activities for them. 

Find out more about our support for sons and daughters.

It doesn't matter if you are living with a disability. We just need to know that you are generally healthy and have enough energy to keep up with a child.

We assess this through your GP. We will then consider any health issues or disabilities identified and how this might impact on your fostering role on a case by case basis.

We want to hear from people who are single, living together, married, divorced or separated, straight or gay. Your relationship and LGBT+ status will not be considered a deciding factor of whether you can foster or not. If you are single, it’s really important to us that you have family or friends who can help and support you.

Neil and Steve are foster carers for a girl called Ruby. They feel they've had excellent support throughout. Read more about their fostering journey.

It's ok to own pets, but we'll need to do a pet assessment just to make sure they're child friendly.

It doesn't matter if you are living in your own home or renting. As long as your home is safe, stable, secure and loving you can apply. You will need to have a bedroom for the sole use of a child you look after. Children who are being fostered need their own space and privacy. They can share with their brothers or sisters if this is appropriate.

If you or anyone in your home smokes you will only be able to look after children over the age of five. We'll also expect you not to smoke inside the house. We know smoking around children can affect their health and we expect our foster carers to respect this.

You don't have to drive. But, if you don't drive or have access to a car then we'll need to be sure you're able to get children to and from school, and to any meetings with their birth family. Sometimes children need to travel to other areas of the county to attend school.

We welcome applications from people regardless of religion or faith. Your religion will not be a barrier to becoming a foster carer with us and the support of foster parents from all communities is vital to us. We need our foster carers to respect and support our children in practicing their own religion if they have one.

It is absolutely fine for our foster carers to have their own religious beliefs as long as the child is looked after whilst you are at your place of worship and you help the child to celebrate and to recognise their own religious festivals. You must respect a child's religion and be able to support them with this.