Maternity leave as a foster carer

[CalaLilly]

My OH and I are being assessed to be foster carers at the moment with a view to becoming short break/ respite carers. As I've done the training I've begun to feel like I'd like to do more and perhaps become a full time foster carer. Finances aren't the main issue for us considering foster caring (obviously) but in the current climate this is obviously something that we must think about.

We have not had our own kids yet and plan to do this in the next few years (God willing!). If we took a break out of foster care would we be entitled to any maternity leave pay if this was kind of "my full time job"? Also, if we fostered a number of kids in the future and had a few of our own we'd need a bigger house- do mortgage companies recognise fostering as an income or would they assess our mortgage just on my OH's job?

Thanks!

Bumping for you.

I don't know about the maternity leave question but I suspect the answer about the mortgage is no, they won't. I'm not sure they'd consider fostering as a secure income.

Does anyone know what maternity allowances you're entitled to if you aren't working at all before the baby is born? Or is that nothing?

Maternity allowance is based on earnings. No earnings= no maternity allowance.

I don't think you get maternity leave from fostering, if you have a placement and are planning children you should be upfront with the SW as they will not want to move a child from you just because you are having a baby. I know many FCs who have had children while fostering and they are just expected to carry on, as if the fostered child was their own. If you don't feel you would be up to that, don't foster right now.
Fostering allowances aren't income as such, and nor are you employed in the normal way, so it's not taxable but also you don't have employment rights. The 'payment' element of the allowance is negligible, in my local authority it's about £40 pw, the rest is allocated to cover costs so it's hardly a 'job', even if you may bring in a lot more than £40 pw.

Thanks for the info! You've confirmed what I was thinking which is really helpful I was off course planning on being upfront and honest with our SW but just wanted to become more informed first so that I can think through my options before we chat.

I'm not really sure how I'd feel about fostering whilst immediately having my own first baby but that's because we've never fostered nor been parents so it's impossible to make decisions over that now. I guess we'll just have to leave our options open for now and play things by ear. Luckily I have a profession where I can always get paid employment if I do decide against full time fostering- I'm a children's nurse so it's not really affected by the credit crunch!

Hi, I'm in the same position as you were... We are respite foster carers but Id love to do it full time but don't feel I could keep a full time job. Did you ever find out if you get maternity leave from fostering?
Thank you
Beth

Hi, Foster Carers are self employed, so you would not be entitled to Mat payment.

I rang the government maternity helpline today to query if a foster carer can claim Maternity pay. As Foster carers are classed as self employed although their earnings are often NIL, they can select on their tax return to voluntarily pay Class 2 contributions. For 2021/22 tax year this would be £3.05pw x 52 weeks = £158.60. Kelly on the helpline, confirmed that if Class 2 contributions are paid then foster carers would be eligible for £156.99 for 39 weeks. She confirmed that you will not be classed as working and any fostering payments are disregarded for benefit purposes - Maternity, child and working tax.
Hope this helps. I couldn't find the information anywhere.

There are some mortgage lenders who take all fostering receipts into account. I recently remortgaged so have direct experience with this. Mortgage Brain have specialist advisers for foster carers and I cannot recommend them highly enough.

Thank you for this it is very informative.

The fact this thread has gone from 2009, to 2018, to 2023 😂😂