Types of foster care

Short term foster care

Short-term foster care is a temporary arrangement while long term plans are being made for their future.

If a child can't return to their birth family, we work to support and prepare them for their new long-term home. During this interim period, you as the foster carer will provide parenting and stability until a permanent plan is established.

Emergency fostering

Emergency fostering happens when a child needs care at short notice due to unexpected situations.

It offers a safe place for the child to stay for a few nights, ensuring they’re well looked after during uncertain times.

Long term foster care

Long term foster care is when you foster a child until they turn 18 or are ready to live independently. It offers stability, belonging and safety while also maintaining contact with their birth family. Children often form a strong bond with their foster carers, and some may even choose to stay with them beyond the age of 18.  

Fostering siblings

We’re committed to keeping siblings together wherever is possible. This ensures that they don't experience the distressing situation of losing the companionship of their brothers and sisters - a relationship that is often the most significant and the only positive one they have.

You’ll need enough space for 2 or more kids, and your allowance will reflect the number of children in your care. Our dedicated social worker will be there every step of the way, providing the support and guidance needed to meet the children’s needs and keep them together.

Fostering teenagers

In Barnet, we have a significant number of awesome teenagers, aged 13 to 18, in our care. Teenagers in care often face unique challenges, providing them with a stable and supportive environment during this critical stage is essential. 

Ways you can support:

• teach them important and essential life skills
• support their understanding and management of emotions and feelings
• motivate them to engage and excel in their education
• maintain a positive contact with their birth family
• help them grow in confidence and develop life skills

We’ll provide special training and support to enable you to truly understand, connect and guide them to become responsible and ambitious adults.

Parent and child fostering

As a foster carer of a parent and child, you'll help the parent to create a safe and loving environment for their baby.

Your role will be to offer a positive, nurturing, and supervised space where parents can learn and grow, and feel confident in their abilities as parents. You may be supporting single mothers, single fathers, or both parents together, helping families stay together.

Typically, parent and child fostering is short term, lasting around 12 weeks.

Specialist fostering

As a specialist foster carer, you'll provide a home for children and young people with complex and challenging needs.

This includes:

• therapeutic fostering: providing specialist care to the child or young person. It's likely the child or young person will have emotional, behavioural needs or a disability. You'll have support from professional therapists
• respite: short term care that offers a break for a child, family, or foster carer for a day, weekend, or longer
• caring for a child with a disability: providing care in a supportive and stable home to a child with learning disabilities, physical disabilities or medical conditions. You are provided with training, a care plan and a designated professional support network

Supported lodgings

Supported lodging helps young people aged 16 to 25 get ready for living on their own. It's a stepping stone to independent living for young people at risk of homelessness and those leaving the care system.

As a host, you'll be a supportive presence in your home, offering emotional support and a safe place for them to learn life skills. But you won’t have the same legal responsibilities as a parent or foster parent.

The young person will have their own dedicated Barnet social worker.

Learn more how to become a supported lodging host.