Interested in fostering - where to start?

[IwannaSnorlax]

I've been thinking about fostering for a long time & feel I want to bite the bullet but don't actually know where to start.

As background, I'm married & have 3 DSs - ages 9, 7 & 5. I'd really only like to foster children younger than my youngest - can you specify an age range? We have a big house with a number of spare bedrooms so space isn't an issue.

Any advice on where to start looking / how to start the process would be much appreciated. (We live in the West Midlands if location matters).

TIA.

I would contact your local authority and a social worker will come out and have a chat to you, as a rule (that does get broken!) you can only foster children 2 years younger than your youngest child. you will probably be accepted to foster 0-18 year olds but with the preference of under 5s. I have three children the youngest is 6 and we have a preference of babies to preschool aged children - this might be better for you if you will struggle doing two school runs ie your children's school and the child's school.
Good luck

Thanks. I've registered my interest online with the LA last night & also requested info from an agency as when I googled fostering in my area, a number of agencies came up first so thought I'd try them too. Guess I'll wait to hear from them.

Hi there, I've just joined as I'm starting to look into the process myself. The 2 main points I cant really find any answers to are: firstly live on my own, so would I likely be considered. and secondly I don't have any children so don't have any proven experience with kids. So would this be a problem? And are here networks where you can get involved in for hands on experience within the fostering community to support an application? Thanks in advance for any advice.

Being single isn't a problem but they like you to show a support network of friends and family if needed. You can't really get involved with fostering but you can volunteer at local, scouts, brownies etc to show you are keen to work with children. Good luck

That's really helpful! Thankyou

We don't have our own kids and have never had jobs working with children and we were still approved by our la. They look at your life and work to assess what transferable skills you can offer and being involved with friends children helped us.

Awe that's interesting!! I thought that would be a big stepping stone. Thanks for that. I've seen a few have gone through la rather than private too. Did you have any particular reason ? I've been reading up and there's so many companies, didn't think they'd be that many to choose from! Thanks
H

Chose to go with our la rather than an ifa because our research led us to believe that the council try to place with in house carers first as it costs less. You usually get paid more if your with an ifa, but it wasn't about that for us. We would rather not wait ages between placements and the children with more challenging behaviours tend to be placed with agency carers as the la sometimes struggle to place them in house (though not always the case)

There is no rule about the age you can take in respect of you own children,never has been .

Your council probably has info on ther website.

They all have different criteria.

Approval will take about a year. It is quite an invasive process- police checks, checks on ex partners, references, in depth discussion of your own childhood and experiences of being parented. They will contact your kids schools.

They will also assess your attitude to the birth parents. The younger the kids are the more contact they are likely to have (up to 5/7 days a week). It is a full time job.

Knowledge of 'challenging' behaviour wil help. Eg attachment disorders, asd/adhd, self harm, eating disorders, cognitive deficits etc.