What happens when you get an emergency fostering call?

The phone goes at twenty past eight on a Tuesday evening. A social worker you have not met needs a home tonight for a nine year old, and can tell you about four things for certain. You have perhaps twenty minutes to decide. If you have ever wondered whether you could handle that moment, this is what it actually involves.

The short answer

An emergency call is short on detail and short on time, and that is not a sign of a service in disarray. It is what happens when a child has to be somewhere safe by bedtime. You will be told what is known, you will be told honestly what is not known, and you are free to say no. If you say yes, the child arrives with very little, the paperwork catches up over the following days and weeks, and there is someone at the end of a phone all night if you need them.

Why a child needs a home tonight

In the year to 31 March 2025, 32,270 children in England came into care. That is around 620 a week, and a large share of those arrivals are not scheduled weeks ahead in a meeting. They happen because something changed today.

There are three routes that most commonly bring a child to a front door at short notice.

• A voluntary arrangement. Under section 20 of the Children Act 1989, a child can be accommodated by children’s services without any court order at all. Family Rights Group describes it plainly: it is an arrangement that can be put in place without any court oversight, and children’s services do not gain parental responsibility through it. A parent who agrees to it can also ask for their child back. Many short notice arrivals are exactly this: a parent in hospital, a family in crisis, a young person whose home has become unsafe for a few nights.
• Police protection. Where a constable has reasonable cause to believe a child would otherwise be likely to suffer significant harm, the child can be removed to suitable accommodation immediately. The limit is strict. Section 46(6) says: “No child may be kept in police protection for more than 72 hours.” That clock is why a call can come at eleven on a Saturday night.
• An emergency protection order. A court can make one where the test is met, and section 45(1) limits it to “such period, not exceeding eight days, as may be specified in the order”. It can be extended once, by not more than seven days, and only where the court has reasonable cause to believe the child is likely to suffer significant harm if it is not extended. So an order of this kind can never run beyond fifteen days.

None of that is the child’s fault, and none of it is something you need to untangle. It is useful to know because it tells you why nobody can give you the full story at the point of the call, and roughly how long the first stage might last. There is a fuller explanation of how the different arrangements fit together in our guide to the different types of foster care.

There is also a supply problem underneath all of this. Ofsted counted 42,190 fostering households in England at 31 March 2025, the fourth annual fall in a row. Of 69,825 approved places, around 17 per cent were vacant on paper, but many of those vacancies do not match the child who needs one tonight. That is why the call goes out to a lot of people at once, and why a yes matters so much.

What the call will tell you, and what it will not

The rules are clear about what you are owed. National Minimum Standard 15.2 says: “Prior to the placement of each child, the foster carer is provided with all the information held by the fostering service that they need to carry out their role effectively. The information is provided in a clear, comprehensive written form and includes the support that will be available to the foster carer.” Standard 3.9 adds that you should be aware of all the necessary information available about a child’s circumstances, “including any significant recent events”.

Read those carefully and you will spot the honest limit in them. You are entitled to everything the service holds. In an emergency, what the service holds at nine on a Tuesday night may be one page. The standards recognise this: Standard 11.1 requires services to have procedures covering “planned and, where permitted, emergency/immediate” arrivals, which is an acknowledgement in the rulebook that some arrivals cannot be planned.

On a first call you can usually expect:

• the child’s age and sex
• the reason they need somewhere tonight
• whether brothers or sisters are involved
• any known health need or medication
• roughly where they are coming from
• what time they will arrive

What often is not known yet: the school, the full family picture, allergies, how the child sleeps, whether they have eaten, what they are frightened of. Ask anyway. Ask what the plan is for the morning and who is bringing the child. Write down the answers, and write down the questions nobody could answer, because those become the first things to chase tomorrow.

It is all right to say no

This is the part people rarely say out loud, so we will. You are allowed to say no, and a good agency will not think less of you for it. You might already have a child settling in who cannot cope with an upheaval this week. Your own children might have exams. You might simply know that a fourteen year old is not who you can help right now.

Saying no honestly is better practice than saying yes and hoping. A child who has already had one home end this week does not need a second ending. Nobody expects you to be right for every child, and the question on an emergency call is not whether you are a good carer, it is whether this is a good match tonight.

There is one thing worth knowing if you do say yes to a child outside your usual approval. The regulations allow a child to be placed in an emergency with an approved foster carer even where the terms of that approval are not quite consistent with the arrangement, “for no longer than six working days”. After that, either the approval is formally amended or the arrangement has to end. So if you are approved for one child under ten and you are asked about a twelve year old for the weekend, that is not a rule being bent. It is a route the regulations set out, with a deadline attached.

The first hour

You said yes. It is now twenty to nine and the child arrives at half past ten.

Put the heating on and the small lamps rather than the big light. Make the bed with something soft on it. Set a phone charger by the bed, because a phone is often the only thing a young person still controls, and if the charger is missing that becomes the first fight of the night. Put out a spare toothbrush and a clean towel. Find pyjamas that will roughly fit, and something to sleep in that is not embarrassing.

Then think about food. Not a meal, a plate. Toast, cereal, beans, fruit, something with sugar in it. Children who arrive at half past ten have very often not eaten since lunchtime and will not say so.

Tell the people already in your home what is happening, in an age appropriate way, including your own children. Move the dog somewhere calm. Take a note of the mileage if you are collecting the child. Have a pen and paper by the kettle, because you will be told things at the door that you will not remember at midnight.

This is where carers who keep a small store of basics find the evening much easier. A drawer with new toothbrushes, plain pyjamas in two or three sizes, socks, a cheap phone charger and a soft toy costs very little and turns a scramble into ten minutes of work. Getting your home ready is worth doing well before any call comes, and our piece on whether you need a spare bedroom to foster covers the room itself in more detail.

The first night

Expect it to be flat rather than dramatic. Most children arriving at night are exhausted and wary. They may not want to talk, or eat, or look at you. They may be extremely polite, which is its own kind of distress signal.

Keep it small. Show them the bathroom, their room, and where you will be. Say what is happening tomorrow morning, even if the answer is that you do not know yet and you will find out. Leave a light on and the door as they want it. Do not fill silences with questions.

If a child cries, or will not come in from the car, or falls asleep in their coat, none of that is a sign the evening has gone wrong. It is a sign the day went wrong long before they got to you.

What follows in the first weeks

The paperwork does catch up, and the timings are set out in law rather than left to good intentions.

• The placement plan, which sets out how the arrangement will meet the child’s needs, must normally be prepared before the child arrives. Where that is not reasonably practicable, and in an emergency it rarely is, the regulations require it “within five working days of the start”.
• The child’s first review must be held within 20 working days of them coming into care. The second follows not more than three months after the first, and reviews then run at intervals of not more than six months.

Alongside that you will be arranging the ordinary things: registering the child with a doctor and a dentist, working out the school run or a new school place, sorting out clothes that fit, and finding out when the child will next see their parents and how that is arranged. Your supervising social worker does this with you, not to you.

What you are paid for a short stay

South Coast pays a single weekly fee for each child, covering both the allowance for their day to day costs and the professional fee for your work.

• Child aged 10 and under: £479.50 a week, of which around £90 is spent directly on the child.
• Child aged 11 and over: £507.50 a week, of which around £100 is spent directly on the child.
• There is also a contribution towards your council tax on top of the weekly fee.

Short stays raise a fair question: what happens if a child is only with you from Friday to Monday? For tax, a part week counts as a whole one. The Low Incomes Tax Reform Group puts it this way: “the full weekly amount is available for any part-week when you have a person in your care”, so a child arriving on a Thursday gives you the full weekly allowance for that week. That matters to emergency carers more than anyone, because their year is made of part weeks.

Our pay page sets out every band, and we have longer explanations of how foster carer pay works in Southern England and of whether foster carers pay tax if you want the detail.

Who you ring at eleven at night

Every fostering service in England has to have one. Standard 21.3 of the National Minimum Standards requires “an effective out of hours advice and support service for foster carers”, because the rulebook accepts that fostering does not keep office hours.

At South Coast that means a real person, not a message service. Our number, 023 8235 2020, is answered 24 hours a day, and there is always an experienced professional available in the evening, overnight and at the weekend. One of our carers, Cath E, describes it like this: “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.” You can read more about the support we give our carers.

Ring early rather than late. The call you make at nine, before it becomes a crisis, is easier for everyone than the one at one in the morning.

You won’t have to do this alone

Emergency and short term care makes up around six in ten of the children we place, so this is not a niche corner of what we do. It suits people who are calm in a mess, who do not need a plan to feel safe, and who can offer a few good nights without needing to know how the story ends.

It asks something real of you. A stranger in your kitchen at half past ten, a week of not knowing, and then, often, a goodbye. In return you are the person who made sure that a child who had a terrible day still slept somewhere warm, with the light on if they wanted it. A child isn’t just given a home, they’re given a chance.

Frequently asked questions

How much notice do you actually get?

It varies from a fortnight to about an hour. Planned moves are arranged in meetings and give you time to prepare. Emergency arrivals are usually the same evening, and around twenty minutes to decide is common.

Can I say no to an emergency call?

Yes. You can decline any request without giving a long explanation, and it will not count against you. Agencies would far rather you were honest on the phone than struggling three days later.

How long do children stay in an emergency arrangement?

Often a few days to a few weeks, while the courts and children’s services work out the next step. Some children move on to a longer term home, some go home to their family, and some stay with the carer who took them in that first night.

Do I need a spare bedroom for an emergency arrival?

Usually yes, for a child over three. A baby under two can sleep in a cot in your own room. There is more detail in our article on whether you need a spare bedroom to foster.

What if I am at work when the call comes?

Many carers work, and the practical question is who can be at home when the child arrives and for the first day or two afterwards. It is worth thinking that through with your supervising social worker before you take emergency arrivals rather than in the moment.