Types of Foster Care (including changes e.g. Adoption)

There are many different types of fostering and some fostering agencies may not offer the full range. If you are considering adopting  the child cared for by you, please see What If I want to Adopt my Foster Child or become a Special Guardian below.

Short-term Fostering:
Short-term carers provide temporary care for a child/young person, who is unable to live with their family. The child can be cared for by you for anything from a few days or weeks, months or up to 2 years. This  is a temporary situation while plans are made and carried out. Regular family time with significant people such as birth family is an important part of short-term fostering.

Permanent Fostering:
Permanent carers offer permanent homes where adoption is not suitable for a child/young person. A child whose plan is permanence will continue to be cared for by you whilst in full time education and beyond.  You will be expected to accept the child into your family as you would your own child and they  may accept your family as theirs.  You will be expected to support them with living arrangements, college, university, whether they continue to live with you or move on independently into adulthood.

Long-term Fostering:
There is a difference between caring for a child whose plan is permanence and one whose plan is long-term foster care. In the case of long-term foster care the child is cared for by you but they don’t want to be claimed totally by the family they live with. This is often because of the family time and bond they have with their birth family. These children/young people are often teenagers who need to be cared for by you but very clearly identify with their birth family. This doesn’t mean that you don’t have to care for them as you would your own child, but they will not see themselves as fully part of your family. They may feel torn loyalties and want to be shown care and commitment from you, but need to have some separation to feel belonging from you and their birth family.

Short Breaks for Disabled Children:
These carers provide respite care to children with disabilities living with their own families. This gives their parents or foster carers a break.

Respite Care:
Respite carers also offer support to other foster carers and families whose children live at home. We are aware that foster carers and families do sometimes need this support to ensure they can continue to succeed for all concerned. This is different from supporting other carers informally which is sometimes called respite.

Connected Carers:
These carers care for a child/young person who cannot live with their birth parents but can live within their extended family network, or a friend of the family. These situations help to provide continuity of care, family, school and friendships, networks and keep the child/young person’s cultural and individual identity.

Parent and Baby/Child Fostering:
For parents and their babies/children who are in need of support and assessment of their parenting skills.

Emergency Care:
Emergency carers provide time-limited care for a child/young person in emergencies, these situations usually occur out of office hours.

Private Fostering:
Private fostering is when a child/young person under 16 (or if disabled 18) is cared for, for more than 28 days by an adult who is not a close relative and the arrangement has been made between the carer and the parent.

Brothers and Sisters:
Where a foster carer can care for brothers and sisters together, this prevents the need for them being separated.

Bridging:
This forms part of the plan  for a child/young person and can sometimes be for up to two years in duration. Carers work with the child/young person and their families towards reunification or prepare the child/young person for joining adoptive or long term/permanent fostering families or for moving to semi-independence.

Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children:
Foster carers who care for a child/young person seeking sanctuary and asylum from their own country of origin.

Staying Put Arrangement:
A Staying Put arrangement is an arrangement whereby the young person you care for continues to live with you after the age of 18. These arrangements are agreed by the care leaver and carer in consultation with their social workers. The purpose of Staying Put is to support the young person until such time that they are fully prepared for adulthood. The arrangement ensures the young adult can experience a transition like their peers, avoid social exclusion and be more likely to successfully manage their independence when they do move on. Your s fostering social worker will discuss this with you when the young person you are caring for reaches the age 16 years as part of their care planning.

On approval the fostering service will decide how many children you are approved for, sex and category of approval. You will normally be approved to care for any child aged from 0-18 years, unless you can only care for a baby due to bedroom issues or cannot care for a child under 5 due to smoking. There are times, however, when the fostering service may ask you to take a child/young person outside your approval range if it is felt this would be a way to meet the child’s needs.

When this happens, the fostering service can vary your approval for a short time either to allow for longer term plans to be made or for a review of your approval as a foster carer to be done so that your approval status can be changed in order for you to care for a child for a longer period.

The 'usual fostering limit' is three, so nobody may foster more than three children unless:

• The foster children are all siblings (then there is no upper limit); or
• The local authority within whose area the foster carer lives, exempts the carer from the usual fostering limit in relation to specific placements.

In considering whether to exempt a person from the usual fostering limit, the local authority must consider:

• The number of children whom the person proposes to care for;
• The arrangements which the person proposes for the care of the  children;
• The intended and likely relationship between the person and the children;
• The period of time for which he/she proposes to care for the children; and
• Whether the welfare of the children (and any other children who are or will be living in the accommodation) will be safeguarded and protected.

Adopting a child is very different to fostering. This is about making a forever commitment to the child so this needs to be considered carefully. The most important thing is that there is a Permanence Plan for the child to be adopted and if this is the case and you would like to find out more, speak to your fostering social worker.

If the decision is to proceed, an assessment will be done focusing on the potential of you as a prospective adopter and whether this will be in the long-term interests of the child. You will receive the same assessment, preparation and training as other prospective adopters.

Special Guardianship or Permanent fostering may be another option.

Special Guardianship addresses the needs of a significant group of children, who need a sense of stability and security but who do not wish to make the absolute legal break with their birth family that is associated with adoption. It also provides an alternative for achieving permanence in families where adoption, for cultural or religious reasons, is not an option. You can apply for a Special Guardianship Order once the child has lived with you for one year immediately preceding the application.

Special Guardians have Parental Responsibility for the child and although this is shared with the child’s parents, the Special Guardian will have the clear responsibility for day to day matters without consultation with others. The parents still have to be consulted and their consent is required to the child’s change of name, adoption, placement abroad and any other such fundamental issues. A Special Guardianship Order made in relation to a  Child in Our Care replaces the Care Order and the Local Authority no longer has Parental Responsibility. In these circumstances, the Care Order is revived if the Special Guardianship Order is revoked.

Special Guardians may be supported financially or otherwise by the local authority and, as with adoptive parents; they have the right to request an assessment for support services at any time after the Order is made.

Special Guardianship has the following advantages as a permanence plan:

• The carers have Parental Responsibility and clear authority to make decisions on day to day issues about the child’s care;
• There is added legal security to the Order in that leave is required for parents to apply to discharge the Order and will only be granted if a change of circumstances can be established since the Order was made;
• It maintains legal links to the birth family;
• There need be no social worker involvement, unless this is identified as necessary, in which case an assessment of the need for support must be made by the relevant local authority.

Special Guardianship has the following disadvantages as a permanence plan:

• The Order only lasts until the child is 18 and does not necessarily bring with it the sense of belonging to the Special Guardian’s family as an Adoption Order does;
• As the child is not a legal member of the family, if difficulties arise there may be less willingness to persevere and seek resolution;
• Although there are restrictions on applications to discharge the Order, such an application is possible.