Fostering allowances

[Pammiepeach]

Hi I am a single woman who is looking into fostering up to 3 children in my home. I have a mortgage that I need to pay and I am single. I am seeing so many different threads and amounts for fostering and really need to know if it is a viable option..

I am looking at going through an agency and thinking an average of about £350 pw .

Do you think that this is realistic ?

Many thanks.

I really want to do this and know I could make a difference and I also need to live and pay the bills.

Many thanks

£350pw is definitely a realised target - for instance, an agency like Compass Fostering offer £370 as an average weekly allowance:
www.compassfostering.com/about-fostering/fostering-allowance/

Like with all agencies you will have the potential to receive more that that depending how many children you are able to care for, as well as their individual needs. If you have space in your home for 3 children then you would receive much more than £350.

When you're thinking about the financial side, it's really important to remember that a portion of the allowance is to be spent directly on the child(ren) in your care.

You should also factor in that there could be (potentially quite long) periods of time where you don't have a placement and so won't be receiving any income from fostering. Would fostering be your only source of income? If so it would usually be useful to have savings for times like this.

@NWGreenhalgh thank you for this. Yes i have factored in that the allowance is for the childrens needs for sure. I will perhaps keep my at home job on as well and see how it all pans out in the first year.
I will have room for 3 children but would ideally like two siblings .
Compass is one of the agencies I am in touch with.

For two children I get almost double that per week, which includes the children’s allowance to be spent on them. With my husband’s salary as well we are quite comfortable but it would be more of a stretch if that was our only income.

I think I get £52 per day per child plus allowances for birthdays xmas summer hols which probably amount to about £700 per year per child. Its important to note that for two children its unlikely you will pay any tax as - depending on age of children - you get app 30K of tax allowance. Thus two kids at £52 per day + annual allowances = £40K. 30K tax allowance as foster carer of 2 kids plus 12k nil tax allowance means no tax. To get the same take home pay as PAYE you would need to earn about 53K. Of course you have to pay all costs of bringing up those children but there are plenty of people who bring up 2 or more children who dont have a salary of 55K.

If you are looking at an IFA you need to factor in that you may have long waits for children, particularly when you are inexperienced. Three children for a single carer is going to be very hard work, and probably not something you would want to do full time- the logistics of school runs will for instance limit your options.

You can claim benefits as a single carer though which can help when you have no children in. What age group are you looking at?

I don’t think you pay council tax either?