What support do you get in your first year of fostering?

Most people who ring us are not really asking whether they could care for a child. They are asking what happens on the day it gets hard, and whether anyone will pick up the phone. Here is what the first year actually looks like, from the training you do before a child arrives to the person you ring at eleven at night.

The short answer

You will not be fostering on your own, and that is not a slogan. The rules that govern fostering in England require every approved foster carer to have a named social worker of their own, an induction, a training programme with a deadline attached to it, and an advice service that runs when the office is shut.

Those are the minimums, and every agency in the country meets them or loses its registration. What actually separates one agency from another is how far past the minimum they go, and how quickly somebody answers when you need them. That is the thing worth asking about before you apply anywhere, and it is why we set out how support works at South Coast in plain terms rather than in a brochure sentence.

Support starts before the first child arrives

The first piece of support you get is preparation, and it happens months before anybody moves in. Every applicant completes the Skills to Foster course, a nationally recognised preparation programme covering why children come into care, how early experiences shape the way a child behaves, and what steady, informed care asks of a household.

It is not an assessment and it is not a test you can fail. It is a room full of people asking the same awkward questions you have been too embarrassed to ask, which is why some people finish the course and decide fostering is not for them. That is a perfectly good outcome, and far better than finding out later.

Alongside it you will complete first aid, safeguarding, safer care and health and safety training, and your home gets a health and safety check that is then repeated every year for as long as you foster.

Before a child moves in there is a planning meeting. You, the agency and the local authority agree the practical detail together: school, health appointments, time with the child’s family, routines, and what you are authorised to decide day to day without ringing anyone. Going into that meeting is the moment most new carers stop feeling like an applicant and start feeling like part of a team.

Your supervising social worker

Once you are approved you get a supervising social worker of your own. The National Minimum Standards put it plainly at Standard 21.8: “Each approved foster carer is supervised by a named, appropriately qualified social worker who has meetings with the foster carer, including at least one unannounced visit a year.”

How often those meetings happen is set by each fostering service rather than by any national rule, which is exactly why it is worth asking. At South Coast we keep caseloads deliberately manageable, so supervision is a proper conversation rather than a box ticked on the way to the next appointment.

Supervision itself is often misunderstood. It is not an inspection of your parenting, and the guidance our supervising social workers are trained on describes the aim as high support and high challenge held together at once. That means consistent and timely information, patient answers even to a question you have already asked twice, decisions made jointly rather than handed down, and mistakes treated as behaviours that can be corrected rather than personal flaws.

In practice a session covers the children living with you, how your household is holding up, what you have written in your daily records, what you are finding difficult, and what training would help with it. It gets written up afterwards, which matters more than it sounds. A carer with a written record has an answer to any question that comes later, and those notes are what your annual review is built from.

What actually happens at eleven at night

Standard 21.3 of the National Minimum Standards is one sentence long: “There is an effective out of hours advice and support service for foster carers.”

Every fostering service in England has to have one. What differs enormously is who answers it, and whether that person knows anything about you, your household or the child sitting on your stairs. Some agencies route you to a duty worker who has never met you. Some put you through to somebody who has.

“Our ssw was always there for us, even when we had to call her at 11pm on a Friday she answered, she knew if we were calling it was an emergency and we needed her support.”
Cath E, South Coast foster carer

Our line runs 24 hours a day, every day of the year, on 023 8235 2020. Whoever you end up fostering with, ask them directly who picks up at that hour. The answers vary more than most people expect.

The meetings that fill your first year

Fostering comes with a diary, and the first year has more in it than any year afterwards. Most of these meetings are not yours to run. You attend as the person who knows the child best, which is precisely the point of you being there.

• A planning meeting, held before or as the child arrives, setting out the practical arrangements
• The child’s first review, which by law must happen within 20 working days of them coming into care, with the second no more than three months after that, and the rest at intervals of no more than six months
• Education meetings, usually once a term, to agree how school is going and what needs to change
• An annual health and safety check of your home
• At least one unannounced visit from your supervising social worker each year
• Your own first annual review, roughly twelve months after approval, which looks back at the year and sets what comes next

The review timings for the child come from the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010, so they are the same whichever agency or council you foster with.

Training in your first year, and the deadline attached to it

Every newly approved foster carer in England works towards the Training, Support and Development Standards. The deadline is real and it is written into Standard 20.3: “Foster carers are able to evidence that the Training, Support and Development Standards have been attained within 12 months of approval (or within 18 months for family and friends foster carers).”

You evidence them in a workbook rather than by sitting an exam, and a fostering household can complete one workbook between them rather than one each. Your supervising social worker helps you gather the evidence, and much of it comes from things you are doing anyway.

Our own first year training programme runs alongside the standards and covers:

• Safeguarding and child protection
• Understanding trauma and attachment
• Safer caring
• Behaviour support and de-escalation strategies
• Supporting education and promoting achievement
• Health and wellbeing, including mental health awareness
• Recording and report writing
• Equality, diversity and inclusion

Training is delivered in person across Southern England, by live video session, and through a bespoke e-learning platform we run with FosteringTraining.com. The online option exists because a course at nine in the evening is sometimes the only hour a fostering household has, and a training programme nobody can attend is not really support.

The carers who have already done it

Formal training gives you the framework. Other foster carers give you the part that is not in any handbook, which is what to do when a nine year old will not get out of the car outside a new school.

We run peer support sessions and reflective groups where carers learn alongside each other, and for most people this turns out to be the support they lean on hardest in year one. If you want a useful test of any agency, ask how often their carers meet each other, and whether somebody from the office always has to be in the room.

The part of support you can pay a bill with

Support you cannot pay the gas bill with is not really support, so it belongs in this list rather than in a separate conversation. South Coast pays a single weekly fee per child, combining the allowance for the child’s day to day costs and the professional fee for your work:

• £479.50 a week for a child aged 10 and under
• £507.50 a week for a child aged 11 and over
• £987 a week for a parent and child placement, with a deduction possible if the parent receives benefits
• Enhanced fostering, typically £100 to £200 a week above the standard rate, reaching £1,600 only in rare and exceptional cases

We also make a contribution towards council tax, because fostering changes what a household costs to run. Foster carers are self employed and receive Qualifying Care Relief, and if the money side is what you are weighing up, we have written in detail about how foster carer pay works in Southern England and set out the current rates on our fostering pay and allowances page.

When something goes wrong

Two worries come up more than any others, and both deserve a straight answer rather than reassurance.

The first is that things become unsteady with a child and nobody helps. In practice the agency and the local authority call a meeting to work out what would actually help, and the answer is often extra training, a short break, a change to the plan, or simply more visits for a while. Asking for that meeting early is a sign of a good carer, not a failing one.

The second is an allegation. Every fostering service must have a designated senior manager responsible for managing allegations, must report them to the local authority designated officer, and must hold written guidance making clear how carers will be supported during an investigation. We set out how safer care protects carers as well as children in our piece on what male foster carers do and how safer care works, and the same protections apply to everybody who fosters.

Support for your own children

If you already have children at home, they are fostering too, in their own way. Standard 21.6 says: “Consideration is given to any help or support needed by the sons and daughters of foster carers.”

That one is easy to nod along to and easy to forget about, so ask any agency what it looks like in practice. At South Coast it means your own children are part of the conversation from the assessment onwards, rather than an afterthought once a child has arrived.

Six questions worth asking any agency

We would rather you compared at least three agencies than took our word for it. These are the questions that tell you the most:

• How quickly did they respond to your first enquiry? It is usually a fair guide to how quickly they will respond later
• What out of hours support do they provide, and who actually answers the phone?
• Where is the office, and where does training happen? You will be going there
• How much will you be paid, and what does that fee have to cover?
• How often will your supervising social worker visit, and will it be the same person each time?
• Do carers meet each other, and how often?

You won’t have to do this alone

The first year of fostering asks a lot of you. There is a child in your home whose life has already been disrupted, a diary full of meetings, a workbook to complete, and a set of new relationships to build with people you have only just met.

What makes it work is not being extraordinary. It is a supervising social worker who knows you, a phone number that gets answered at eleven at night, training that is useful rather than box ticking, and other carers who have already been where you are. That is what we mean when we say a child isn’t just given a home, they’re given a chance. The home is yours. The chance is built by everybody standing behind it.

Frequently asked questions

How often will my supervising social worker visit?

There is no national rule setting the frequency, so it varies between agencies. What is required is that you have a named, appropriately qualified social worker who holds meetings with you and makes at least one unannounced visit a year. Ask any agency you speak to what their normal pattern is, and whether it changes when a child first arrives.

Do foster carers really get support at night and at weekends?

Yes. Every fostering service in England must run an effective out of hours advice and support service. South Coast’s line is open 24 hours a day, every day of the year, on 023 8235 2020.

What are the Training, Support and Development Standards?

They are the national benchmark for what a foster carer should know and be able to do. Mainstream foster carers must be able to evidence them within 12 months of approval, and family and friends foster carers within 18 months. You record the evidence in a workbook, and a fostering household can complete one workbook jointly rather than one each.

Will I get a break?

Short breaks are part of how good fostering is sustained, and they are arranged through your supervising social worker rather than being something you have to organise yourself. If you are close to running on empty, say so early. It is far easier to put support in place before a household is exhausted than afterwards.