News & guides
Useful reading for the curious, the nearly-ready and everyone in between. Start with the question that brought you here.
A good place to start
Five questions worth asking before you choose a fostering agency.
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6 articles
Getting started
Yes. Care, consistency and commitment are what matter. Here are a few things to think about.
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Getting started
Your experience can be a strength. The conversation starts with your life now, and what you could offer.
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Getting started
You don’t need a partner to foster. You do need the time, stability and support to care for a child.
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Home & family
What to know about the spare room, and why it is part of the fostering conversation.
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Choosing your agency
A useful first conversation should leave you clearer about the people, payments and support around you.
Read the guideSCF news · January 2026 inspection
Read the independent findings from South Coast Fostering’s Ofsted inspection.
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Every foster carer in England is entitled to a named social worker, an induction, a training programme with a deadline, and an out-of-hours service. Here is what that actually looks like across your first year with South Coast, from Skills to Foster and the planning meeting to the phone call at eleven at night.
An emergency fostering call gives you a few facts and about twenty minutes to decide. Here is why children need a home at short notice, what you will and will not be told, why saying no is fine, what to do in the hour before they arrive, and what the law requires in the weeks that follow.
A fostering panel reads your assessment, meets you and makes a recommendation, but it does not make the final decision. Here is who sits on the panel, what they are allowed to ask, what the terms of approval actually mean, how long the agency decision maker has, and what the Independent Review Mechanism can and cannot do if the answer is no.
Fostering money behaves differently from a wage. It arrives weekly, it stops when no child is living with you, and part of it is not really yours. Here is what a fostering income looks like in a real household: what the National Minimum Standards entitle you to ask for, how to plan for the gaps between children, how benefits and tax actually work, and the costs people forget.
A young person who was in foster care immediately before their eighteenth birthday can carry on living with you afterwards. It is called Staying Put, and the local authority has a legal duty to support it until they are 21. Here is what actually changes on the birthday, what the money looks like, what the Living Together Agreement covers, whether you can keep fostering at the same time, and how an arrangement ends.
A room-by-room walk through the fostering home safety check: what the National Minimum Standards actually require, what a social worker looks at, and what to sort out before a child arrives.
Early permanence lets a baby go straight to the family who may adopt them, while a court is still deciding. Here is what the law actually requires, how long the wait really takes, what the latest national figures show about how these arrangements end, and where an independent fostering agency like South Coast fits in.
Fostering siblings sounds simple until you read the law. What the Children Act 1989 actually requires, why 37 per cent of children in care live apart from their brothers and sisters, the three-child fostering limit and its little-known exception, and what South Coast pays for each child.
Almost every guide for new foster carers stops at the first night. This one starts on day two. What the first fortnight actually involves, the four statutory deadlines that fall inside your first twenty working days, and why a calm two weeks is not proof that it has worked.
A conversation, at your pace
You don’t need to be ready to apply. A friendly conversation can help you work out your next step.
Usually 15–20 minutes. No pressure to apply.
