Fostering when you have no children of your own.

[awsomer]

I know the facts say that it's absolutely fine to be a foster carer even if you are not a parent yourself but is there anyone out there who is actually doing this? And how on Earth did you manage to be approved?

I just had a 'no' to carry on to training based only on their concern that although I have a lot of experience with children through work & volunteering I don't have enough experience of looking after children in my own home....

Wait, what?

When I asked how I could get this experience I was basically told to come back to them later after I'd had my own family.

I'm so confused. So... I guess that's the end of that?

omg thats terrible!

I started fostering when I was 32 and I have no children of my own. I went with an agency and they didn't see it as a big hurdle. I had never even worked with children and my only experience was through friends kids.

A couple who foster for the same agency were also turned away by another agency for having no birth children so I know it's worth you trying some other places. Don't be put off and remember they have done you a favour as you wouldn't want to work for someone so negative anyway!

Definitely not the end of that! I'm a foster carer with no birth children.

I volunteered for everything I could, and did have experience of babysitting nieces and nephews (often overnight) but I can't stress enough that caring for a foster child is nothing like caring for your own children. The assessing social workers should be aware of that and volunteering with "challenging" children should stand you in good stead even without kids of your own.

Were you applying through an agency? I found them much more difficult than my local authority.

Hi. Myself and my partner have just recently been approved. We don't currently have a family of our own (we are planning on it)
We were asked a lot of questions about this during the assessment and just explained that we didn't see it as an issue. We want to foster along side having our own family and it seemed silly to wait. We have the space, time and love to give now.
I do have experience in childcare but my partner does not, beyond looking after nieces and nephews.
We are also quite young (29 and 32) but our agency always seemed to view this as a positive.
I would ask them exactly what concerns that have and try to turn them all into positives. For example, whilst you don’t have any birth children you maybe able to take children with more complex needs.
Good luck.

Thanks to you all for sharing your experiences - I'm so relieved that it is possible!

I put a lot of thought into who to foster with and the reason I chose this agency rather than another or the LA was because I had heard such good feedback about the training and support they give, but I feel a bit put off them now!

We've agreed that they'll carry on processing us for now: half of me hopes that when they get to know us better they'll have faith in us and the other half wants to say stuff them! Especially as I'm worried now that they're just going through the motions because I wouldn't accept their 'no' and they're just waiting until the next stage when they can say no again.

It seems a strange thing to do but maybe we have to get better at selling ourselves; they made up their minds based on what we could fill in in a form and what we could get across in a brief Q&A chat - it feels like they've made an assumption about us without even knowing us...

Hi. I'm a Foster Carer with no children of my own. I foster for my L/A. It wasn't an issue. I did have a little experience looking after my brothers baby for the odd day, but that was about it.