In July 2025, Kent County Council reported that 65.9% of its children in care were living within twenty miles of home. That was 14.1 percentage points below its own target.

The other third are somewhere further away.

Ofsted rated us Outstanding

In January 2026 Ofsted inspected South Coast Fostering and rated us Outstanding in all three judgement areas: the experiences and progress of children, how well children are helped and protected, and the effectiveness of leaders and managers. The inspector raised no requirements and no recommendations.

Their summary: “The independent fostering agency provides highly effective services that consistently exceed the standards of good.”

We look after just over 20 fostering families and we intend to stay small. The reason we can work like this is that nobody here carries a caseload they can’t do justice to.

What we pay Kent foster carers

£479.50 a week for a child aged 0 to 10. £507.50 a week for a child aged 11 and over. Per child, every week, whether the placement lasts a fortnight or five years.

Caring for a child with additional needs pays £550 to £850 a week. Parent and child placements, where you support a young parent and their baby together, pay £987 a week. We also contribute between £330 and £1,500 a year towards your council tax, rising the longer you foster with us.

Most fostering income is tax free under HMRC’s qualifying care relief. Ask us and we’ll go through the numbers with you properly, including what your household would actually take home.

The support behind it

Your supervising social worker visits at least every four weeks and sees the child at least every eight. That’s a floor, not a target, and in practice it’s usually more.

There’s telephone advice twenty four hours a day, every day of the year, including a dedicated out of hours team. Fostering doesn’t keep office hours. Placements break down at eleven at night, not at half past two on a Tuesday.

Training runs from before you’re approved and carries on afterwards, funded by us.

Where Kent’s shortage actually bites

Kent’s Children in Care Sufficiency Strategy 2025 to 2028 is blunt about the gap. The council says it needs to look outside its own service for “approximately 44% (310) of our fostering placements”.

Its performance reporting says the same thing a different way. In the twelve months to June 2025, 71.1% of Kent’s children in care, excluding unaccompanied children, were living with council or family and friends foster carers, against a target of 85%. The council rates that measure red.

Kent had 510 mainstream fostering households looking after 650 children in September 2025. It took 764 enquiries that year and 135 became applications.

Medway is tighter again. Only 37% of Medway’s children in care were placed inside Medway at the end of March 2025, and 98 fostering households cover the whole authority.

Who you’d be working with

Feagal is the supervising social worker for Kent and Medway. He is the person you would actually see every few weeks, and the one who picks up when something has gone sideways.

Sally Barnett is our registered manager. She fostered before she managed, which changes the tenor of most conversations. Ofsted named her in the January 2026 report.

Richard Norwood is our director and Melanie Yearwood is our responsible individual.

Do you qualify?

Most people who assume they can’t foster, can. You don’t have to own your home, be married, be under 55, or have children of your own. You can work, though you’ll need genuine flexibility during the day.

You will need a spare bedroom for most placements. Babies are the exception: a newborn can sleep in a crib in your room at the start.

Kent is a big county and a car matters here. Contact sessions, health appointments and assessments can mean several trips a week, and the rail lines all run towards London rather than across the county.

Already fostering somewhere else?

Transferring is more straightforward than most carers expect, and because you’re already approved it moves faster than a first assessment. If you have a child in placement, a transfer protocol meeting protects their stability throughout. Read more about transferring to South Coast Fostering.

Where we cover in Kent

Maidstone, Canterbury and Medway, along with Ashford, Tunbridge Wells, Dartford, Gravesend, Folkestone and the towns between them.

Talk to us

Call 023 8235 2020, or send a message on WhatsApp if that’s easier. The first conversation takes about fifteen minutes and commits you to nothing at all. Ask us the awkward questions: what happens if it goes wrong, and what the money really looks like after tax.

We’d rather you asked now than found out later.