Types of fostering
Children can be fostered at any age from birth until their 18th birthday. The duration and type of care varies based on the child's needs.
Your assessing social worker will help you think about what type of foster care is right for you. They will help you make these decisions during the assessment and approval process. Everyone is different and has different life experience. The type of care you offer will depend on what you want to do. You don't have to jump in straight away.
Many foster carers choose to begin with sleepover foster care. This helps them to grow their skills and confidence. Other foster carers might choose to start with short-term placements.
Sleepover foster care
Sleepover foster care provides a home for a child or young person for a very short period of time - like a weekend, week or fortnight.
Foster families sometimes need a break for a range of reasons. Sleepover foster carers are ready to step in and look after another carer's foster children temporarily. This provides a change of scene and a different routine for a short while.
Short-term foster care
Many children who come into care need a short-term solution due to issues that mean they can't live at home. Short-term placements usually last for a few weeks or months at a time, but they can last for up to two years.
A child or young person might go into short-term foster for a range of reasons, such as:
- An unexpected illness, accident or incident at home meaning their parents can't look after them
- While social workers are assessing a situation at home to see if children can return to their family
- While babies or younger children are waiting for an adoptive or long-term foster family
- To help young people prepare for independent life as an adult
Long-term foster care
Long-term foster care involves looking after a child or young person until they are 18. Long-term foster care gives children a permanent, consistent and secure family home. It can be for several years.
Children are fostered long term when an adoptive family isn't found or is not the right solution for them.
Once a foster child reaches the age of 18, you might choose to extend the time they stay with you through the staying put scheme. This gives young people in care the option to continue living with a family beyond the age of 18.
Staying put arrangements
A staying put arrangement is where a young person who has been living in foster care stays in their foster home after the age of 18.
Staying put gives more time for the young person to prepare for independence and moving out. Staying put is discussed as an option when your foster child is 16 years old. It might not be appropriate for all young people or foster carers.
Some young people benefit from a staying put arrangement when they go away to university, so they have a stable home to return to in the holidays.
Parent and child foster care
Parent and child foster care means looking after a young parent and their baby or toddler in your home. The parent might need support because they had a poor experience of parenting when they were growing up. Or they might need help to learn parenting skills.
Foster carers are a role model to help them recognise, understand, and respond to their child's needs. You help give the parent advice and guidance. This can help younger or inexperienced parents and their children to thrive and stay together.
New Roads foster care
New Roads foster care involves foster carers working paid shifts in one of our residential care hubs. The hubs are in Norwich and Dereham.
Young people who work with New Roads are either in care, on the edge of care, or at risk of their care plan or family relationships breaking down. The New Roads approach is proven to help young people get their lives back on track when matched with the right foster carer who supports them.
During shifts, foster carers work to develop bonds with a young person. Once a bond is formed, the young person might:
- Come to you for sleepover care
- Move to your home for full-time care
- Be supported by you to return to their family home
Enhanced foster care
Enhanced fostering supports a child or young person to move into foster care after they have been living in a residential children's home. It might be that they are living in a residential home because a previous foster family didn't work out.
Foster carers and children or young people spend time together building relationships. They build trust before they move in full time. The planning, introduction and settling in process takes longer than other types of foster care.
Short breaks foster care - children with physical and/or learning disabilities
Short breaks foster care provides care to children and young people with physical and/or learning disabilities. This could be for an overnight stay, a day or a half day.
During their short break, they might take part in activities, explore new opportunities, make friendships and become more independent. Short breaks also provide respite for the child or young person's family. This is so they can have a day's respite or break from their caring responsibilities overnight. Some carers offer short break care for longer so the parents can go away on holiday.
Short breaks foster carers often care for the same child or young person on a regular basis. Disabled children and young people can thrive in a familiar foster care environment. They can develop strong relationships with their carers.
Being a short break foster carer is a long-term commitment. We take time and care to match children with the right carer, as the fostering relationship is likely to last for many years.
Connected foster care
Connected care is when a child or young person gets fostered by someone they already have a positive relationship with. This could be a family member - for example, an aunt, uncle, cousin, grandparent, family friend or neighbour. This is usually a very different route into foster care, via the kinship team.
Emergency and police and criminal evidence (PACE) foster care
Emergency foster carers give a home to children or young people when we urgently need to keep them safe. This role is only suited to experienced foster carers. Emergency carers work on a rota system and are on call for a week at a time.
As an emergency carer, you might be needed at any time of day or night, including weekends. You might need to provide care for up to ten days.
Experienced emergency foster carers might also provide police and criminal evidence (PACE) foster care.
PACE foster carer provides a safe, welcoming environment and a warm bed for a child or young person when police request it. This could be due to circumstances in the child or young person's home, or due to criminal activity. This is offered under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984.
As a PACE carer, you provide care until the morning of the next working day. This could be for a single night or for a few nights over a weekend or bank holiday. PACE foster carers work on a rota system in a community of specialist carers.
PACE foster carers get:
- Specialist support
- Individualised training
- Advice and supervision from specialist supervising social workers
No-one is ever asked to provide a PACE bed for a child or young person who has been assessed as posing a risk to the public under the PACE Act.
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