What's Important in a Foster Carer

What is Essential?

• Must like children and young people and enjoy their company.
• Be good at working alongside other people in the child's life.
• Do not have a police record for violence or offences against children. However, if you have a police record we would like to discuss this with you.
• Able to understand, or be prepared to learn, how children behave when they have been emotionally damaged,­ physically hurt or neglected.
• Able to attend initial and ongoing training and support groups to enable you to undertake the fostering task.
• Ideally you should have a spare room in your home for a foster children or proper room sharing arrangements.

What is NOT Important?

• Whether you are single, married, heterosexual or gay.
• Whether you have a disability or a medical condition, as long as it is stabilised and does not interfere with your ability to care for a children or young person on a day-to-day basis.
• You have children of your own, as long as you enjoy children and young people and have a sense of humour.
• You own your own home - as long as you have a stable tenancy.
• If you are retired.
• Whether your own childhood was difficult, as long as you have appropriately dealt with and learnt from these experiences.
• What ethnic background you are from - we are actively looking for carers from a wide variety of cultures and backgrounds, in order to match up children and young people with suitable families.
• Whether you work because we have a variety of schemes to suit various circumstances.