More children than ever are being put into care but there is a desperate shortage of foster parents.

There is a shortage of carers to look after babies, teenagers and sibling groups, and a need for more short and long term foster carers so children and young people can be placed closer to their community, maintain vital links with family and friends and remain in their school.

What is foster care?

Being a foster carer is richly rewarding. Fostering is a way of providing family life for someone else’s child in your home when they are unable to live with their parents. Fostering is a flexible working option, enabling you to stay at home and care for a child around your own family needs. Foster carers offer an invaluable service helping children rebuild their lives.

Could you foster?

Fostering is a lifestyle choice to provide children and young people with a caring and nurturing environment. This is often only a temporary arrangement, and many fostered children return to their birth families. Children who cannot return home but still want to stay in touch with their families, often live in long-term or permanent foster care.

Children who are fostered are encouraged to thrive in every area of their development. It is expected that foster carers will promote education, social awareness, health and hygiene and provide an enriching lifestyle with good role models for children to aspire to.

Any adults can foster where they can demonstrate they have time, emotional space, a comfortable room in their home and a passion for encouraging children to meet their full potential.

Fostering organisations positively welcome applications from individuals whatever their religious or ethnic background, whether you are married or single, or in a same sex relationship.

Prospective carers should ideally be non-smokers or demonstrate they will not smoke around children; it is particularly important to consider this when fostering younger children.

Adults intending to foster need to have a commitment to their professional development and attend some specific training, alongside working with a range of other professionals linked to the child.