Can men foster? What male foster carers do and why they matter

If you are a man wondering whether fostering is genuinely open to you, or whether you would be taken seriously if you rang up and asked, the answer is short. Men foster. They always have, and the children waiting for a home in Southern England right now include a great many boys and young men. Here is what a male foster carer actually does, what the assessment will ask of you, and how we support the men who foster with South Coast.

The short answer

Yes, men can foster. Nothing in fostering law or in the National Minimum Standards treats men differently from women. Gov.uk sets the legal minimum age at 18 and notes that most fostering services will look for applicants of at least 21. The Department for Education set out the beliefs that stop people from enquiring in its February 2026 paper, Renewing Fostering: homes for 10,000 more children, and answered them one at a time.

• Relationship status is not a barrier. Suitability rests on whether you can offer a safe, nurturing home.
• There is no upper age limit. You need to be over 18 and physically able to care for a child.
• You do not have to own your home. Renters and social housing tenants can foster, subject to permissions and a stable tenancy.
• Most pets are compatible with fostering.
• Minor or historic convictions do not necessarily prevent fostering.
• Driving is not required, though you do need reliable transport for the school run and appointments.

Not one of those answers changes depending on whether you are a man. If you are wondering about the practicalities of space, we have written separately about whether you need a spare bedroom to foster.

What the numbers show, and what they do not

Ofsted counted 42,190 fostering households in England at 31 March 2025, down 1 per cent on the year and down 7 per cent since 2021. Between them those households held 56,345 approved mainstream foster carers, which is more carers than households because most fostering households have two approved adults in them.

Here is the honest part. There is no national figure for how many of those carers are men. Ofsted does not break its carer numbers down by sex, so any precise percentage you see quoted for male foster carers in England is an estimate rather than a statistic. What is beyond doubt is who is waiting. The Department for Education recorded 81,770 children in care in England in the year ending 31 March 2025, 67 per cent of them living with foster carers, and reported that boys are “slightly over-represented” among them, at 56 per cent. More than a quarter of children in care, 27 per cent, are aged 16 or over.

So a majority of the children who need a foster home are boys, and a large share of them are teenagers. That is not an argument that boys can only be cared for by men. It is an argument that a fostering workforce short of men is short of something children ask for.

What a male foster carer actually does

Mostly the same things every foster carer does. The school run, the packed lunch, the parents evening, the hospital appointment, the bedtime, the Sunday afternoon when nobody wants to go anywhere. Fostering is domestic before it is anything else, and the men who do it well are the ones who take the domestic side seriously rather than treating it as their partner’s department.

Beyond that, a man in a fostering household offers something specific to children whose experience of men has been frightening or absent. Our training material puts it plainly: a male carer offering a stable home with warm communication can help a child learn what safety and trust from a man look like, and can reshape how that child sees a man’s place in a family. In practice that comes down to ordinary, repeated things.

• Being consistent and steady, so a child can predict you.
• Showing feelings rather than hiding them, and talking about them.
• Using authority calmly, without volume.
• Sharing the routine household jobs rather than only the fun ones.
• Turning up to school events, matches and appointments.
• Spending time with a child one to one, doing something they chose.

None of that requires a particular temperament or a sporting background. It requires patience, and a willingness to keep going on the days when nothing you do seems to land.

Can I foster on my own?

Yes. Single men foster, and the Department for Education is explicit that relationship status is not a barrier. In practice single male applicants are less common than single female applicants, and some men assume that means they will be turned away. They are not. Everything in our piece on whether single people can foster applies whether you are a man or a woman.

If you have a partner, you both get assessed and you are both approved. You are not a supporting act on someone else’s application. If post from an agency ever arrives addressed only to your partner, say so, because it is the sort of small thing that quietly tells men they are the second carer in their own home.

The question men ask most, answered honestly

A lot of men hesitate over one thing and rarely say it out loud: what if I am accused of something?

It is worth being straightforward about this. Allegations happen in fostering, as they do in any role that puts adults in daily care of children. Most are not upheld. The process exists because children have to be safe, and a proper process is also what clears a carer’s name when nothing has happened.

The protection is safer care. Every fostering household has a safer care policy, written with your supervising social worker, which sets out the specific risks in your home and how you will handle them. It covers the situations that arise in every family and can be misread in a fostering one.

• Car journeys and who sits where.
• Bedrooms, bathrooms and privacy.
• Physical affection, including what a child is comfortable with.
• Tone and volume, and how anger is shown.
• Who is alone with a child, and when.

The National Minimum Standards require that foster carers are “trained in appropriate safer-care practice”, and that every fostering service has a designated senior manager responsible for handling allegations, working with the local authority designated officer. Standard 4 also expects services to take a proportionate approach to risk rather than a blanket one.

What safer care is not is a set of rules that stop you being affectionate. A child who has scraped a knee still gets a hug. What it does is take out the guesswork, so you know in advance which situations to avoid and which are perfectly fine, and you are not making judgement calls under pressure. Keeping good daily records matters here for the same reason. When a question comes up months later, a carer with a written record has an answer and a carer without one has a memory.

Fitting fostering around work

Many men who enquire are working full time and assume that rules them out. It does not. Gov.uk states that you may be able to work and foster, while noting that foster carers have no statutory right to time off work to care for a foster child. What matters is that someone can be there for a child, especially in the first weeks after they arrive and when school rings at eleven in the morning.

In two-carer households the common arrangement is that one carer fosters as their main occupation and the other keeps their job. Because the fostering fee is paid per child per week and is not means tested against a salary, that usually works. South Coast pays £479.50 a week for a child aged 10 and under and £507.50 for a child of 11 or over, with £987 a week for a parent and child placement. Enhanced fostering, for children with higher needs, typically pays £100 to £200 a week more, and in rare cases reaches £1,600. Foster carers are self-employed and Qualifying Care Relief means most pay little or no tax on that income. We have set out how foster carer pay works and how the tax side is handled in full elsewhere.

If you both work and neither of you can step back, short breaks fostering is often the honest starting point, because it uses weekends rather than weekdays. It is one of several options set out in our guide to the different types of foster care.

What we will ask of you

The assessment is the same for you as for anyone. An enquiry and an informal chat, a home visit, preparation training, then the full assessment written up with you over several months, then fostering panel and the agency decision maker. You will also need references, a medical and a DBS check.

You will be asked about your own childhood and about the men in it, because that is the part of your history that shapes how you parent. Men sometimes find that conversation harder than they expected. It is not a trap, and there is no correct answer. What the assessment is looking for is whether you have thought about it, not whether your upbringing was straightforward.

You won’t have to do this alone

You will have a supervising social worker who knows you and your household, a support line that answers at three in the morning as readily as at three in the afternoon, and training that carries on long after approval. You can read more about the support we give our foster carers. Where there is a group of male carers to join, join it. The men who stay in fostering longest tend to be the ones who have other men to ring.

Fostering is not a soft option and we would rather say so now. It asks for patience on the days when nothing works, and it asks you to keep offering steadiness to a child who is testing whether you mean it. What we can promise is that we stand beside you while you do it. A child isn’t just given a home, they’re given a chance.

Frequently asked questions

Can a single man foster a child?

Yes. Relationship status is not a barrier to fostering, and single men are approved as foster carers every year. You will be assessed on whether you can offer a child a safe, stable home, on your support network, and on your understanding of what children who have been through difficult things need.

Are men allowed to foster girls?

Yes. Matching is done child by child, taking account of what each child needs and what your household can offer, rather than by a rule about the carer’s sex. Your safer care policy sets out how privacy and personal care are handled in your home.

Do male foster carers get paid the same?

Yes. The weekly fee depends on the child’s age and needs, not on who is caring for them. At South Coast that is £479.50 a week for a child aged 10 and under, £507.50 for a child of 11 or over, and £987 for a parent and child placement.

I work full time. Can I still foster?

Possibly. Gov.uk confirms that you may be able to work and foster, but someone needs to be available for a child during the day, particularly at the start. Many households manage it with one carer fostering and one working. Talk to us about your hours before you rule yourself out.

What happens if I am accused of something?

Allegations are looked into through a set process overseen by the local authority designated officer, and most are not upheld. Your safer care policy, accurate daily records and an open relationship with your supervising social worker are your best protection, and you will be supported throughout by your social worker and our senior team.