Long-term or permanent care
Could you provide a permanent home for a child or young person?
“When a little one puts their arm around you and snuggles into your neck, you know they feel safe and a part of the family. That’s really important.”
Sometimes it’s not possible for a child to return to their parents or wider family and permanence through long-term fostering will be considering alongside adoption.
Within long-term fostering, there is an expectation that the child will remain with you throughout childhood until they leave care and an aspiration that your relationships with may endure into adulthood and indeed throughout life,
You won’t be on your own, there is always a team of people to help. You will have your own fostering social worker, and the child has their own social worker too.
One of the key advantages which long-term foster care can offer is respect for the continuing role of the birth family, and support for the child to maintain a relationship with their birth family unless this is considered detrimental to the child’s interests.
I suppose it's hard to explain why they are special but they are because they took me in when nobody else wanted me.
Young person in foster care
Who can offer this sort of care?
You need to have experience of looking after children perhaps as parents, foster carers, or adoptive parents. If you feel you could offer a permanent home to a child we would try and ‘match’ you and your family to the right child or children.