Types of fostering

Short-term fostering provides children in care with a safe and loving home when they’re not able to stay with their families.

This could be for a night or two or even a few years while plans are made for a child's future. Often, this type of fostering is required while care proceedings are ongoing.

Short-term fostering

Long-term fostering offers a more permanent home to a child, which often lasts until they turn 18 and are able to live an independent adult life.

This provides great stability to young people in care as they remain with a single, dedicated foster family who will care for them for many years.

Long-term fostering

In situations where it’s unsafe for a child to remain at home, an emergency foster care placement will provide them with somewhere safe to stay and a family to comfort them during these times of uncertainty and distress.

Emergency foster care

Provides vital support to foster families by giving them a short break from fostering, while the child in their care stays with their respite foster parent.

Generally, respite care is for 1 or 2 nights – sometimes a little longer – and tends to take place over the weekend and during the school holidays.

Respite foster care

There are many children in foster care who have a wide range of disabilities that impact their ability to engage in everyday activities, look after themselves and thrive. This includes sensory disabilities, learning difficulties and mobility problems.

Disability fostering

Parent and child foster parents welcome vulnerable mothers – sometimes fathers too – into their homes and provide them with the practical skills they need to care for their children.

This type of foster care placement typically lasts around 12 weeks but can sometimes last longer depending on the needs of the parent and child.

Parent and child fostering

Supports young people who have often travelled great distances without their parents to flee war, political violence and exploitation, and seek asylum in the UK.

Fostering asylum-seeking children

There’s a significant number of teenagers in care who urgently need a foster family to support them through this crucial stage of their life.

Foster parents will need to be patient, nurturing, reliable, trustworthy and committed to guiding and supporting the young person through their adolescence.

Fostering teenagers

Placing siblings in foster care together can greatly benefit the well-being and outcomes of children. Sadly, there’s a national shortage of foster parents who have the space and energy to care for sibling groups, leaving many children separated from their siblings.

Fostering siblings