Types of fostering
Remand fostering
When young people are remanded by a court to the care of specially trained foster carer/carers.
Family and Friends/Kinship foster care
A child who is the responsibility of the local authority goes to live with someone they already know, which usually means a family member, such as grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers or sisters.
Specialised Therapeutic foster carers
Foster care for children and young people with very complex needs and/or challenging behaviour.
Teenagers
Children who need foster carers are teenagers, both girls and boys.
Special needs fostering
Children needing foster care include those with medical conditions or physical or learning disabilities, such as autism, hyperactivity, attention deficits, or reading difficulties.
Emergency
When children need foster care for a few nights.
Short term fostering
When foster carers look after children for a few weeks or months while plans are made for the child’s future.
Respite care fostering
When disabled children with special needs or children with behavioural difficulties regularly stay for a short period of time with a family so that their parents or usual foster carers can have break.
Long term foster care
Not all children who have to live permanently away from their birth family need to be adopted so instead they can go in to long term foster care.
Parent and child fostering
Usually a mother and her child are placed with foster carers to keep the child and mother safe and often to provide a foster carer assessment of the mother’s parenting skills.
