Fostering FAQs

Yes. As long as you have a spare room you can offer a home to a young person regardless of your relationship status. We will look at your whole network to make sure you have support from family and friends.

You can foster if you have children living with you at home. Growing up in a fostering household can be beneficial for young people. We will communicate with your children throughout the assessment period. They can be supported by our support workers and will be invited to join in with our events and activities. They will become part of the community too.

This depends on the young person’s circumstances. Some may need care for only a short period while others can remain with a family until they are able to live independently.

You will need to offer a safe and nurturing home environment ensuring that the young person’s wellbeing needs are being supported to help them fulfill their potential. We will support you to do this.

Foster carer households can have pets. Pets are taken into account when assessing a family and we recognise there are often therapeutic benefits. You may be unable to care for children who are afraid of animals or have allergies.

Foster carers cannot smoke or vape in their homes due to the health risks it poses to children and young people. In some situations, they may smoke or vape outside and when away from the children. Local authorities have their own guidelines for smoking and vaping in households where children and young people are cared for and some will not consider foster carers who smoke or vape, even outside, at all. Others will allow older children to live with foster carers who smoke or vape outside their home as long as they have no health conditions where this would be exacerbated. In line with National Guidance, local authorities will not place children under 5 years of age with carers who smoke or vape.

We strongly encourage foster carers, and everyone in the CHT Community, to look after their wellbeing and support applicants to be smoke and vape-free.

Yes, as long as you have a spare room for a young person.

Yes, you could become a short break foster carer who is part of the extended family offering a home to a young person at weekends or during holidays. If you want to have a child or young person live with you full time then we would expect you to be at home full time to offer the quality of care and support they need. 

We will give you as much information as possible about the young person before they move in. We always try to arrange for our carers to meet the young person they’ll be caring for. However, this isn’t always possible, especially in an emergency situation but this would be discussed with you.

We have listed the factors you need to consider when choosing a fostering provider in an expanded blog post. 

This blog looks at foster carers’ income and includes what foster carers receive, the factors involved, other benefits and how remuneration works. 

The example given here is a carer looking after two young people aged 12 and 14 at Skill Level 3 who would receive around £1100 per week.