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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In parent and child fostering, a mother or father moves in alongside their baby and stays for around twelve weeks while the local authority assesses whether they can care for their child on their own. Here is what the role really involves, why the family court is usually behind it, what gets written into the agreement before anyone arrives, and what South Coast pays for it.
Fostering and adoption start in the same place and then go in very different directions. One legal difference explains almost all of the others: adopters become a child’s legal parents, foster carers do not hold parental responsibility. Here is how the two compare on permanence, money, approval and the places where they overlap.
Emergency, short-term, long-term, parent and child, baby, short breaks, enhanced fostering and Staying Put all ask something different of a carer. Here is what each one actually involves day to day, what South Coast pays for it, and a few honest questions to help you work out which one would fit your life.
You do not need a partner to become a foster carer, and you never have. The Department for Education says plainly that relationship status is not a barrier. Here is what single applicants are actually asked about, whether you can keep your job, and how the money works on one income.
More people talk themselves out of fostering over a bedroom than over almost anything else. Here is what the fostering standards actually require, which rooms count, what happens at the home safety check, and why a baby under two can sleep in a cot in your room.
Foster carers are self-employed and must file a tax return every year, but thanks to Qualifying Care Relief most pay no income tax at all. Here is what to register for, when, the 2026/27 thresholds, and how to protect your state pension.
What South Coast Fostering actually pays, what the weekly amount is for, and why most foster carers pay no tax on it at all. With current rates, the 2026/27 qualifying care relief figures, and two worked examples.
Article taken from BBC News website A medical student who grew up in care says she could not have secured her place
Did you know that next week is Neurodiversity Celebration Week (18th – 24th of March 2024)? It’s a worldwide initiative that challenges stereotypes and
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