How Long Do Foster Children Stay?

If you’re considering fostering, it’s only natural that you’ll have questions about the process involved, and what it’s like to be a foster carer. Here at Olive Branch Fostering, we answer lots of frequently asked questions from potential foster carers, and one of those is, ‘How long do foster children stay?’

In today’s blog, we’ll be answering that question and explaining the different types of fostering in more detail.

What’s the Average Length of a Fostering Placement?

When thinking about fostering, many people wonder how long a foster child might stay with them. Unfortunately, the answer to this is very much, ‘it depends!’

The truth is, that there’s no average length of time that a child will remain with a foster carer, as it will depend on several factors, including:

• The type of fostering placement

• The child’s needs

• The child’s care plan

• Legal proceedings

• The foster carer’s preferences or changing circumstances

Can I Choose How Long to Foster For?

While foster carers can’t decide how long a foster child stays with them, they can express a preference to offer a certain type of fostering placement.

So, for example, if you know that you’d prefer to have advanced notice of a placement, and foster in-between other commitments, such as work or caring for grandchildren, respite fostering might be the best option for you. On the other hand, if you’d prefer to have a child stay with you longer, so you can build a lasting bond and support them as they grow, you might prefer long-term fostering.

If you’re not sure which type of fostering is right for you, your family and your circumstances, our interactive checklist might help. But if you’re still not sure - don’t worry! This can be explored with you during your initial home visit before you apply, and during the assessment process.

What Are the Different Types of Fostering?

As we’ve said, foster carers can offer different types of fostering placements. You might already have an idea of the type of fostering you’d like to do, but if not, this will be discussed with you as part of the assessment process, and your social worker can help you decide which type of fostering placement might be right for your circumstances. Here are some of the main types of fostering.

Emergency Fostering

This is when a child needs somewhere safe to go in a hurry, before a more long-term solution can be found. As an emergency foster carer, you might only have a child in placement for a night or two before they move on, and you could get a call at any time of day or night with very little notice before a child arrives.

Respite Fostering

Like emergency fostering, respite fostering placements are short-term, lasting anything from a single weekend to a fortnight. However, unlike with emergency fostering, respite fostering is planned well in advance. As a respite foster carer, you’ll take over the care of a foster child or children while their usual foster carer takes a well-deserved break.

Short-Term Fostering

As the name suggests, short-term fostering is where you offer a child or children a home for a short amount of time, usually while legal proceedings take place and plans are made for their long-term care. However, in reality, short-term foster placements can last anything from a few days up to two years!

Long-Term Fostering

You might think that the phrase ‘long-term fostering’ simply refers to any fostering placement that goes on for longer than a few weeks or months, but long-term fostering is a specific type of fostering that allows children to stay in a placement without disruption when other options, such as returning to birth family or moving onto adoption, aren’t the right fit. As a long-term foster carer, you become the child’s permanent family, often supporting them right up to the age of 18 and even beyond.

Other Types of Fostering

There are also other types of speciality fostering placements you might offer as a foster carer, such as parent and child fostering, therapeutic fostering for children who have experienced trauma and abuse, and fostering Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children (UASC).

Can a Placement Type Change?

Typically, foster carers are approved to offer a specific type of placement. For example, an independent fostering panel might recommend that you be approved as a short-term foster carer for a single child between the age of 0 and 5. This will then dictate what placements you are offered as a foster carer.

However, sometimes a child’s plan might change while they’re with you. For example, a child you’ve been fostering short-term might have a plan put in place to move to a long-term foster placement. If you decide you want to offer that child a long-term placement, then this would be discussed with your social worker and the child’s social worker to make sure it’s the right fit for everyone involved. It may then be agreed that you become a long-term foster carer for that child. On the flip side, during a long-term foster placement, it may become clear that things aren’t working out for a number of reasons, and a child may be moved on to another placement earlier than planned, if it’s deemed to be in your or their interests.

Fostering With Olive Branch

If you’ve been wondering how long foster children stay, we hope this blog has answered your question.

At Olive Branch, we support our foster carers to offer a wide variety of placements, from parent and child fostering to fostering teenagers, and everything in-between!

No matter what type of fostering placement you think you could offer, there are children in the North West waiting for safe, loving homes.

If you’d like to find out more about the different types of fostering, we’d love to hear from you. You can get in touch online, give us a call on 01706 558910, or request a callback for a time that suits you. We look forward to hearing from you.