Fostering - when to stop work

[Hen87]

My husband and I have been together 8 years, married for 6. We are looking into starting the process of becoming foster carers. We have agreed that I would be the one who would stop/reduce working in order to look after any young people we have placed with us.

My question is can you begin the process while working full time? All the agencies we have looked at state you really can’t work full time as you have to be available and flexible. Part time is a possibility but I don’t want to stop working and have little to no income to pay bills. How do people decide when is the best time to stop?

I know the process is going to be long (around 6 months) and want to try and keep working during this time but I want to know if anyone has any experience of going from full time work into fostering. (We don’t have any children of our own so have both always worked)

When we started the process you needed to prove that you could manage on one income.
When fostering you can have long periods when you gave no child placed with you so they need to know that you will be able to cope financially at these times.
Would you manage to pay all of your bills with just your husbands income if that was all you had for maybe 6 months?
We needed to show full bank statements going back years to prove that we were financially able to foster.

Thanks for your comment. I have worked it out, I have 2 incomes currently at the moment - my salary and then I also have a small self employment income each week (with a children’s charity which is what really makes me want to do this). I have worked out that I would be able to drop my salary and then work self employed from home to help with the income so it’s not so much of a big drop. We obviously aren’t wanting to do this for the money but it’s a big step to stop working full time. We know there will be sacrifices we have to make but the rewards are going to be far greater.

If we were to start the process, I’m assuming there would be some sort of guidance and assistance through the process while we work out what is best?. It’s something we are really passionate about doing. I know there are certain benefits that we may be entitled to, however I’ve never claimed benefits In my life so wouldn’t know where to start

I foster and still work full time. I do work for myself so can manage my own diary to be available for appointments etc and I opted to foster older children - early teens - so there's an element of independence. It's worked really well. I certainly wouldn't give up your job until you've been through the Form F process and know you're going to panel for approval. You may not be matched with anyone for ages if you're going for short of long term but if course an emergency placement could be instant.

Thanks, it’s good to get an insight from someone who has done the process. My plan was to stay In work for the time being until we began the process and see how we get on. but we are aware that we need to be flexible once we have a placement, hence why I was opting to stop working In The full time job I have (very little flexibility as it it) and work self employed from home so I can work around it. Ideally we would be looking at long term placements but it may be a case of starting with some emergency/short terms.