Types of foster care
You can foster a child for just one night or for several years. There are so many ways you can make a difference.
Being a foster carer means providing a safe, secure and loving home for a child that can’t live with their parents.
You could foster a child for a single night, a few weeks, months, or years, even until the child is an adult.
We are here to help you understand the different types of foster care and support you to consider what type of fostering might best suit you.
Short-term
Short term fostering is when you look after child for a few days, weeks, months or sometimes longer until plans are made for their future e.g. they can return to their birth family, move into longer-term care or someone can adopt them.
This is the most common type of fostering and it could be for one child or siblings.
Long-term
Long term fostering is when you look after a child up until the age of 18 or potentially beyond (known as ‘staying put’) dependent on their needs.
Most foster carers start off short-term fostering with the potential that it may evolve to providing long-term care.
Respite
Respite care is when you look after children for a short, fixed amount of time to help give them and their main carers a valuable break. This is typically for a weekend, up to one or two weeks.
This can suit people who are new to fostering and want to gain experience or may not be able to give time to longer-term care.
Other types of care
Find out about other types of care you can offer.
Early permanence, also known as ‘fostering for adoption’, is when a baby or child you may adopt comes to live with you at an early stage. This helps children form attachments to their carer at a young age.
When you support a baby or young child along with their parent to live with you. Parent and child carers help parents develop their skills in a warm and nurturing family environment.
Also known as ‘kinship care’ or ‘connected persons’ is when you look after family member or the child of a close family friend. The most common carers are grandparents, but it could also be aunts or uncles, older siblings or someone the child knows well.
If you have arranged to look after someone else’s child and would not come under kinship care, this is known as private fostering.
Children and young people who are refugees and asylum seekers are usually supported through regular short-term fostering.
There are also national support schemes that are not technically fostering, such as 'Homes for Ukraine'.
Short breaks are when you look after children and young people with disabilities or special educational needs. As well as giving parents or carers a break, this respite supports young people in building relationships outside the home.
You would be linked to a family and would provide regular respite to the same child, who is typically living at home with their parents. It would be helpful to have experience of children with additional needs, however, we will provide training and support.
We’ve been doing respite fostering, mainly at weekends. We both work full time and it works... We have the most amazing, fun weekends with our placements. Even if you are just curious about what is involved, please enquire.”
Get in touch
Reach out to our friendly fostering team.
You can call us or book a time and we'll call you back for an initial chat.