Single foster carer adopting?

[Flower20166]

Hi,
Just wondering if there are any single foster carers out there who have ended up adopting the child they were fostering?

not me personally but i have known a few who have, was pretty straight forward for the ones i knew

I'm just wondering how it would work financially.
I don't work outside of fostering. I don't have a mortgage but obviously still have water, gas, electricity bills to pay etc.
I could claim income support and child benefit and child tax credits but I don't know how much that is?
Child is 2 years old and I want to make sure I have thought everything through before I let child's social worker know that I'd like to be considered.

I know in Scotland if a fostercarer adopts they are usually paid their fostering allowance for up to two years.

I haven't heard of that here, but I'll have to check. I know that they like you to take around a years break from fostering if you adopt though.

Hi Flower, I'm a single foster carer. I've not adopted but I have a 3 year old birth son, so I can claim income support and child tax credit for him, and also child benefit. (Good job too, because I couldn't survive on just my fostering income!) Claiming income support means you can get a reduction in council tax too.

So to answer your question, you're looking at around £72 a week for income support, £62 a week for child tax credit and £82 a month for child benefit. I think I'm paying about 15% council tax, so that's a saving each month.

(I think CTC is based on your previous year's earnings, so that might be a different amount for you...not 100% sure about this though.)

Hope that helps. And have a look at online benefits calculators, they'll tell you what you might be able to claim.

That's helped enormously FairyTreeHouse, thankyou.
I currently do get income support and council tax reduction, which is a huge help!
That better helps me knowing where I stand financially now.

Glad it helped. Good luck!

Thankyou! :)

Just wanted to add - you will only be able to claim Income Support until your newly adopted child turns five. After that it's Jobseekers.
Fosters carers can claim IS beyond age five.

Thanks Minnow. It's such a mindfield!