Foster carers needed in Farnborough
South Coast Fostering is recruiting foster carers in Farnborough, Cove and Southwood, and across the rest of Rushmoor and north east Hampshire. Children from Farnborough who come into care are placed by Hampshire County Council, which handles children's services everywhere in the county except Southampton and Portsmouth.
Rushmoor is a small borough with two towns inside it, Farnborough and Aldershot, and 13 wards between them. Its population was about 99,800 at the 2021 Census, up 6.4 per cent on 2011. No separate figure is published for Farnborough on its own, so anyone quoting 99,800 as the town's population is quoting the borough's.
The 2025 English Indices of Deprivation rank Rushmoor 197th out of 296 English local authorities, which puts it in the more comfortable half. Three of its neighbourhoods still sit in the most deprived fifth nationally, the same three as in 2019, and the council's own data sheet names income deprivation affecting older people, education and skills, barriers to housing and crime as borough-wide concerns.
The Department for Education's count for 31 March 2024 put 1,917 Hampshire children in care, with 370 of them living outside Hampshire and over 20 miles from home. Farnborough is in the far north east corner of the county with Surrey and Berkshire on its doorstep, so a placement that counts as in county can still be a long way from a Farnborough classroom. By May 2026 the county's total had reached 1,711 children currently in care, 21 more than the year before. Ofsted judged Hampshire's children's services Outstanding at a short inspection in June 2024, under a grading Ofsted retired on 1 April 2026. Neither fact finds a bed for a fourteen-year-old on a Friday afternoon.
Sharron covers Hampshire and the Isle of Wight as supervising social worker and would be your point of contact here. The minimum standard is a visit every four weeks and sight of the child every eight. Advice by phone is available at any hour on any day, with a dedicated out-of-hours team behind it.
The weekly payment is £479.50 for a child up to the age of 10 and £507.50 once they turn 11, per child. Where a placement involves additional needs it runs between £550 and £850, and a parent and child placement is £987. Council tax is covered somewhere between £330 and £1,500 a year depending on how long you have fostered. HMRC's qualifying care relief means most of it is untaxed. Ofsted rated the agency Outstanding in all three judgement areas in January 2026. Call 023 8235 2020.
What do you need to be a foster carer?
The bedroom question comes up first. A fostered child needs a room of their own, which rules out a house that is already full. The exception is a baby, who can sleep in a crib in your room to begin with, though the room still has to be there for later.
Availability is the second test and the one that trips people up. Contact with the birth family and review meetings get booked inside the working day, medical appointments as well, and the schools break up for six weeks. If your employer cannot absorb any of that, the application will not get far, whatever else you bring to it.
There is no required background and no required job. What the assessment looks for is whether you can stay steady while a child tests you, and whether you will pick up the phone and ask for help rather than ploughing on alone.
Support you'll receive from us
- 24/7 support from your supervising social worker
- £507.50 a week in fostering allowance and fees to foster
- Intensive training program to help you be the best you can be
Where are we recruiting?
Farnborough first, including Cove and Southwood, then out across Rushmoor to Aldershot, and over the boundaries into Fleet, Church Crookham, Ash, Ash Vale, Mytchett, Frimley, Camberley, Blackwater, Hawley, Yateley and Sandhurst.
North east Hampshire sits a long way from the water, and it is a part of the county where more foster carers are needed. Farnborough Main station is on the main line between London Waterloo and the south coast, and the town sits off the A325 with the M3 at junction 4. Getting to appointments elsewhere in the county is easier from here than the map suggests.
Rushmoor’s population grew 6.4 per cent between the last two censuses, and Hampshire’s number of children in care rose again in the year to May 2026. If you are in Farnborough or nearby and have a spare room, ring 023 8235 2020. More on the rest of the county is on our Hampshire fostering page.
Farnborough
Next Steps
Depending on where you are in your fostering journey, we have a few suggested next steps.
Download Our Guide To Fostering
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What Farnborough looks like from a foster carer’s side
The airport takes up around 7 per cent of Rushmoor’s land area and hosts more than 70 tenants. Farnborough Airport’s own figures, from a CBI Economics study in 2024, put the business aviation flying out of it at £1.9 billion of gross value added to the UK economy each year and the equivalent of 23,000 full-time jobs. That is a national number rather than a local headcount, and the study was commissioned by the airport, so read it as an indication of scale.
On the ground it means an airfield, an army garrison next door in Aldershot, a station on the Waterloo main line and a town centre with outline permission to be rebuilt. The Civic Quarter scheme, granted permission in February 2023, would add up to 960 energy-efficient homes, a leisure facility, a hotel, a replacement skatepark and more than 1.93 hectares of green open space to the middle of the town.
None of that changes what a fostered child needs, which is the same school on Monday and the same adults on Tuesday. It does change the odds of finding it. A child from Farnborough placed with a carer in Farnborough keeps the school, the friendships and the walk home. A child placed sixty miles away loses all three.
Rushmoor’s children’s services come from Hampshire County Council today. That changes in April 2028: the government confirmed on 25 March 2026 that Basingstoke and Deane, Hart and Rushmoor will merge into North Hampshire Council, with elections in May 2027. The name on the letterhead will be different. The child in a Farnborough classroom who needs somewhere to live will not be.
Talk to us on 023 8235 2020, or read about our wider coverage on the Hampshire fostering page.
book a call about fostering:
We’d be happy to give you a 15-20 minute call to tell you about fostering. Don’t worry, there’s no pressure from us – it’s honestly a chance for you to ask us any questions you have about fostering, and your suitability. Just complete this short form
