About Fostering
- What exactly is fostering?
- Who needs fostering?
- Why are more carers needed in Haringey?
- Types of fostering
- What do young people say about being fostered
What exactly is fostering?
Simply put, fostering is looking after someone else's child or children in your own home. Foster carers share responsibility for the children they foster with the parents of those children and with us; the local authority. This is explained in more detail in the information pack you can download below in the attached files section.
Fostering is usually a temporary arrangement. Normally, we want to get fostered children back with their own families as soon as possible. Children who cannot return to their own home but still want to stay in touch with their families often live in long-term foster care. There are different types of fostering and it’s up to you which type of foster care you offer.
Thinking about being a foster carer is different to thinking about adoption. Even if you think you want to offer long-term foster care this doesn’t then lead on to adoption. If you are interested in adopting, then please visit our adoption web page.
|Back to topWho needs fostering?
Children come into care for a whole range of reasons. We'd be lying if we said that all the children that need foster care come from stable backgrounds. If they did, they wouldn't need looking after by us.
Children that need looking after have usually experienced change and upset in their lives. How they deal with this will largely depend on their age and on the support around them. Children who are fostered stand a much better chance of coming to terms with their experiences.
|Back to topWhy are more foster carers needed in Haringey?
Haringey has a large number of children in care who we are actively seeking foster care for and it is important that we have the right quality of care to meet young people's individual needs.
Children and young people thrive in safe, loving homes. At no other time is this care and support more important than to children who have experienced upset and trauma.
More foster carers are needed in Haringey because we want our children in care to live with people carefully chosen to meet their specific needs – this means we need more choice of foster carers.
Too often children in care are moved from home to home, are split up from their brothers and sisters, and have to live a long way from their family and friends.
The more people who are approved as foster carers, the more likely it is that a good match can be found for a child in terms of location, culture, lifestyle, language and interests, that the needs of our looked after child are met with little disruption.
|Back to topTypes of fostering
There are many different types of fostering and as part of deciding whether you could foster, it’s important to think about what you might be able offer. Each type of foster care has different challenges and rewards. If you decide to specialise in one type of fostering and then find that it doesn’t suit you, you can always try a different type.
- Short-term task- centred
This can mean anything from an overnight stay to a period of several months. Short-term foster carers provide a temporary place to stay until a child can return home to their own family or a longer term fostering placement or adoption arrangement can be made.
- Short-break
This covers a variety of different types of part-time care, including offering a break to the family of a child with disabilities, or a break for a foster family. A child could come and stay for anything from a few hours each week to a couple of hours each week to a couple of weekends each month.
- Emergency
Emergency foster carers need to be prepared to take a child into their home at very short notice at any time of the day or night. Children will usually only stay for a few days, while longer-term plans for their care are considered.
- Long-term
Long-term fostering allows children to stay in a family where they can feel secure, while maintaining contact with their own family. Children in these arrangements do not usually return home and are expected to remain in long term care until they reach independence.
We are also developing specialist types of fostering ie, children with disabilities, mother and baby foster carers and a supported lodging scheme which focus on working with children and or young people with specific needs. Further details on this can be found in our information pack in the attached files section below
|Back to topWhat do young people say about being fostered
If I can’t be with my own family then I want the opportunity to experience family life and be cared for by people who provide a nice place to live and are there for me, to listen to my problems and help me sort them out
I'm very glad I went into foster care because I had lots of positive experiences, like I've been opened up to lots of things I wouldn’t have had if I’d stayed at home with my parents
My foster carers gave me a little grasp of a different way of life…I was very lucky to live there
- Comments taken from the Fostering Network's "All About Fostering" publication.
|Back to topContact Us
You can contact us in a number of ways:
- Register your interest using our online form
- Email fosteringrecruit@haringey.gov.uk
- Phone 020 8489 3754 or
- Write to Haringey Fostering Service, 40 Cumberland Road, Wood Green, N22 7SG
Attached Files
| Filename | Filetype | Size |
|---|---|---|
fostering information pack.pdf  | 2643 KB | |
| PDF documents require Adobe Acrobat reader. Please click here to download. | ||
